Problems with standalones mac/windows

[Alex Rice]

On Jan 15, 2004, at 7:48 PM, Thomas J McGrath III wrote:

> It is much simpler of a problem to fix.
> Just have the user hold the control key and choose 'download link to 
> disk' in OSX.  I think you can hold the option/alt key down while 
> clicking with the mouse and go right to the download.

Maybe special keystrokes to do a download is fine for Andrew's needs - 
a game shared among friends, but in a hi-profile situation it won't be 
adequate.

Also switching to a particular file type, say .sit or .hqx, hoping that 
is will known by the web browser is also problematic. It's a gamble. 
What if they have an old or misconfigured browser? What if you think it 
should be known by the browser but it really is not? What if the user 
deleted their MIME type settings or helper application settings? So 
it's just a partial solution.

> The other simple solution is to convert the file from a .rev file 
> which acts more like a text file(which loads in a browser window), to 
> a .sit or .hqx etc. file which will then 'auto' download when clicked 
> because that is browser expected behavior for those formats.

I used to work for a ISP/web hosting provider so bear with me. I'm not 
sure you understand the cause of the problem. If you do, then I 
apologize for the noise.

You can try any file type, binary or text, and if the web server MIME 
type config doesn't map the file extension, and the web browser doesn't 
have that file extension in it's MIME types and/or helper applications 
preferences, then guess what happens: the browser tries to display it 
as text, even if it's binary.

That's what the application/octet-stream MIME type is for- it says to 
the web browser "hey if you don't have a preference what to do with 
this file, here is the MIME type to use" and the the web browser goes 
"Oh! application/octet-stream- I'm supposed to download that and save 
it to disk"

The correct solution with Apache server is as simple as uploading a 
.htaccess file into your web directory (for most ISPs). That's a pretty 
simple solution, considering you do it once and the problem goes away 
forever.

Hope this helps,

Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | 
<http://mindlube.com>

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco