File Force

When a site visitor requests a file, File Force can force the user's web browser to download the file to disk instead of displaying it in the browser window.

Web browsers today are pre-configured to display various types of media when accessed directly, such as text files, various image, video and audio formats, PDF documents, and Flash movies. After this happens, it's typically possible for a visitor to save the file to their hard drive using their browser's File menu and/or the item's contextual menu ("right-clicking"); however, novice computer users may not be aware of this, or perhaps you would prefer that visitors view the media in a non-browser application - or maybe you just want to make sure that visitors will attain a copy of the file for themselves so they don't have to re-visit the site to access it again. File Force solves this problem by offering files with certain HTTP headers which cause the web browser to download the file to the user's disk instead of displaying it in a browser window.

Please note that File Force offers an easy solution to this problem, but it (or any other solution which requires a scripting language) is not recommended for high-traffic sites and/or sites that need to offer rather large files. Solutions which rely solely on the configuration of the web server should be implemented instead.

NOTICE: The Beta 3 release changes the path for forcing file downloads. Whereas previously a file located at sites/default/files/song.mp3 would use the path files/download/song.mp3 to be downloaded, it now utilizes the normal path, but with "download" prepended to it: download/sites/default/files/song.mp3

The Drupal 5 version of this module is no longer being developed.

Releases

Official releases	Date	Size	Links	Status
6.x-1.1	2008-Nov-11	7.35 KB	Download · Release notes	Recommended for 6.x