So I have an ‘export’ application that arrives the user at an end page with a textarea with lots of text. Now the workflow is to copy and paste that text from the textarea into a file.
The exported code is getting larger, and we want to encourage users to do this more often, so the copy/paste route is no longer desirable. (Not to mention that my xterm->ssh->screen->vi chain doesn’t paste 250K characters so well)
So the problem is this: I have a textarea that has exported code in it, and I want to provide a button that is ‘Download this Code to a file’
I’m fairly sure that I will have to hit the server again, but I just want to check all my bases. The ways I can think of doing this (sending generated textarea value as a file ot the browser)
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Create a script that receives said text as a POST and sends it back with the right Content Headers. This is no desirable because we would be POSTing 250k, which would be slower than:
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Create a script that regenerates the text area and provide a button the original page that hits the scripts and downloads the file. This is the option I am leaning towards
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Use Javascript somehow and perhaps beable to skip the server all together and just send the $(‘.exported’).val() to the browser with the right headers? Not sure how to do this atm.
So if anyone has suggestions that’d be great, maybe I’m overlooking something. Thanks!
edit: Download textarea contents as a file using only Javascript (no server-side)
This question says the JS route is not possible (probable)
I would go with option 2. Simplest and fastest. The other ones are a bit contrived.
If you go with option 2, why even leave the textarea at all?