[whatwg] "Content-Disposition" property for <a> tags

Ian Hickson ian at hixie.ch
Wed Aug 25 12:09:32 PDT 2010


On Fri, 30 Jul 2010, Dennis Joachimsthaler wrote:
> 
> Having a Content-Disposition property on <a> tags which does the same as 
> the HTTP Header. For example changing the file name of the file to be 
> downloaded or rather have a image file download rather than it being 
> shown in the browser directly.
>
> This would avoid constructs such as <a href="hi">Download</a> (Right 
> click and click save target as... to download).
> 
> It would also eliminate the need to handle such requests with a server 
> side scripting engine to change the headers dynamically to enforce 
> downloading of the content.

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010, Eduard Pascual wrote:
> 
> Let me complement the proposal with a use case: 
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3358209/triggering-a-file-download-without-any-server-request

This seems like a fine idea. I would recommend registering a new "rel" 
type (marked as a "Hyperlink Annotation") and trying to get browsers to 
implement it:

http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#Is_there_a_process_for_adding_new_features_to_a_specification.3F
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/complete/links.html#other-link-types

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'



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