Question

I have a single php script on my site that facilitates my site’s downloads (logs user info, controls user permissions etc). A typical link looks like this on my site:

<a href="file_download.php?file_id=12345">Download file 12345</a>

In file_download.php I check to make sure the file request is valid, and if so, it does a header force file download

header("Content-type: application/force-download");

which forces the download prompt in the user’s browser. The user never leaves the page they click the link on.

What I am wondering is if I am able to toggle a jQuery event from file_download.php onto the parent page? It seems if I do anything on file_download.php other than a ‘header force download’ the user will leave the page.

Ideally I would like to keep my href links unchanged (for the sake of not editing a million instances site wide) and have file_download.php toggle a lightbox window prompting for user information before the download (if needed of course).

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

You wouldn’t need to toggle the event from the PHP page, you could attach the information box to all of your download links, and then use JavaScript to redirect:

var downloadLink;

$(".download-link").click(function(e){
    e.preventDefault();
    downloadLink= $(this).attr("href");
    displayLightbox();
});

$("form").submit(function(e){
    e.preventDefault();
    //form validation
    if(formValidated = true){
        window.location = downloadLink;
    }
});