Forum OpenACS Q&A: IE not listening to the MIME type I tell it to

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1: IE not listening to the MIME type I tell it to
Posted by Paul Doerwald on 01/31/02 12:53 AM

I'm having difficulty with setting up some download file code. I'm trying to let users download files that are stored on the system (in the same way as [new-]file-storage and the code in download-defs.

The above-cited examples serve the files with whatever MIME type ns_guesstype deems appropriate, however that causes types like Word and Acrobat documents to display inside the browser window.

I know this is an Internet Explorer "feature". MS didn't think that programmers would be capable of setting a MIME type so they decided to let IE guess at all times.

I also read about a work-around somewhere, but I can't remember where that article was, or what it said.

Does anyone have any idea what I could do to get IE to *always* show the "Open | Save as..." dialog when a link is followed?

FYI, what I'm doing is: ns_returnfile 200 "*/*" "[gfn_files]/$project_id/ $filename"

Thanks...

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2: Response to IE not listening to the MIME type I tell it to (response to 1)
Posted by David Walker on 01/31/02 12:58 AM
try setting the content type to application/octet-stream and see what happens
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3: Response to IE not listening to the MIME type I tell it to (response to 1)
Posted by Paul Doerwald on 01/31/02 01:07 AM
That doesn't work either.  IE chooses one based on the file extension.
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4: Response to IE not listening to the MIME type I tell it to (response to 1)
Posted by Torben Brosten on 01/31/02 01:19 AM
I've been taking some online courses using WebCT (webct.com). They had a similar problem with MS docs trying to display in frame windows.  I don't recall how they got around the problem, but you might check out their sample classroom environment --upload then download the files you are having difficulty with.. and see how it works..  It think it changes presentation based on filename extension.
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5: Response to IE not listening to the MIME type I tell it to (response to 1)
Posted by David Walker on 01/31/02 01:29 AM
<a
href=http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q182315>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q182315</a><br>

This article claims that in IE 5.0 and higher you can use add a
Content-Disposition header.
<pre>
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=myfile.doc
</pre>