Downloading mp3s quicktime problems

Freeway
1

Hi there–
Hope you can help me out. I am using the download file action and am selecting a quicktime or an mp3. However, when I actually click on the link it opens up a new window and displays the file. I don’t understand if people are able to download from there, and do they need quicktime pro in order to do so? My download window shows no file downloading and nothing shows up on my desktop. I want people to be able to click on the file and have it automatically download. What am i doing wrong? thank you for your help!
-Cindy

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2

Browsers decide what to do with files by what sort of file they are.
If you link to an html file, they will try to display it. If you link
to a Photoshop file, every browser except Safari will download it to
disk or try to launch Photoshop to open it. (Safari just displays it,
because it can.)

So in order to force these files to download, you have to trick the
browser into thinking that it can’t display the file itself. The
simplest way to manage this is to put all of these MOVs and MP3s in a
separate folder somewhere, and in that same folder put an .htaccess
file. This is a plain-text file named .htaccess (leading period is
critical for this trick to work). In that text file, you would add
the following text:

AddType application/octet-stream .mp3
AddType application/octet-stream .mov

This forces the browser to consider these file types the same as it
would a generic lump of binary code – it just downloads it to your
visitor’s disk.

The reason why you put all these in one folder is that you don’t want
this behavior everywhere on your site. Certainly there are some cases
where you would like people to be able to play the movies or listen
to music in the browser, right? If that’s not true, then just add
this file somewhere in your server’s web folder.

Note that this will have no effect when you preview locally, it
requires a real Web server to work at all.

Walter

On Mar 3, 2008, at 2:18 PM, Cindy wrote:

Hi there–
Hope you can help me out. I am using the download file action and
am selecting a quicktime or an mp3. However, when I actually click
on the link it opens up a new window and displays the file. I don’t
understand if people are able to download from there, and do they
need quicktime pro in order to do so? My download window shows no
file downloading and nothing shows up on my desktop. I want people
to be able to click on the file and have it automatically download.
What am i doing wrong? thank you for your help!
-Cindy

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3

Thanks Walter–
I did try what you said, but I’m doing something wrong. I didn’t know what to the name the folder, and also when saving this plain text file, the text program asks me if it is rich text or html, and then tells me that the name is reserved for the system and that the file will not be visible if I use that name. I went ahead and did all of that, but alas, it doesn’t seem to work!(not to mention the files are now invisible). I’m putting the folder within the media folder for the website. I’m also working off of a Mac. hmmmm…what else am I missing?
Thanks.

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4

Sometime around 3/3/08 (at 17:25 -0500) Cindy said:

when saving this plain text file, the text program asks me if it is
rich text or html, and then tells me that the name is reserved for
the system and that the file will not be visible if I use that name.

The leading dot makes it invisible. The way to do this is to make the
file without the leading dot, upload it, then rename it on the server
using your FTP utility. Or use the FTP tool to make the file on the
server in the first place - that’s what I do sometimes.

Just put it into the folder on the server where you store your MP3 files.

k

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5

softpress’s ftp utility does not allow this does it? so I have to get a third party ftp tool?

I knew I didn’t know enough about making websites!

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6

ok, well I found how to move files, rename, etc. on my hosting website. But now the softpress pages I designed don’t know where the new files were moved to. This is all very confusing. sorry for your trouble!

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Sometime around 3/3/08 (at 21:34 -0500) Cindy said:

ok, well I found how to move files, rename, etc. on my hosting
website. But now the softpress pages I designed don’t know where the
new files were moved to. This is all very confusing. sorry for your
trouble!

Why did you move anything around? You should put your pages that hold
the ‘download’ links into their own folder, then add the .htaccess
file into the Resources folder in that folder.

Avoid moving things around yourself on the server until you really
understand how things work. It keeps life simple! :slight_smile:

k

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8

i did that because even if I store the mp3s in their own file folder softpress does not upload it in a folder. It uploads the files and puts them along everything else. and walter suggested that I put the htaccess file in a folder with the mp3s. I just want to be able to do this via softpress without having to install another ftp utility or go online to my web hosting service. If anyone can tell me how to do this using freeway pro 4 and its ftp uploader I would greatly appreciate it!

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9

In Freeway, in the site panel, create a new folder where you want to
have this behavior. Move all of the pages where you expect links to
MP3/MOV files to be resolved with downloads. Just for example, we
will call this folder mymovies.

Upload your site using Freeway. At this point, all of the links
should work, but the content will still display in your browser.

Using a third-party FTP/SFTP tool, create and edit the .htaccess
file. You will not be able to create a file on your local computer
that begins in a dot, the Finder just won’t let you do that.
Furthermore, Freeway will not allow you to create a page or file
named with a leading dot and with no file-type extension. If you want
to store a local copy of this file, leave off the dot. Make sure to
put this .htaccess file in the mymovies folder on your server that
Freeway generated after you publish from your modified document.

At this point, any clicks on links to MOV or MP3 files will result in
a binary download.

Walter

On Mar 4, 2008, at 10:01 AM, Cindy wrote:

i did that because even if I store the mp3s in their own file
folder softpress does not upload it in a folder. It uploads the
files and puts them along everything else. and walter suggested
that I put the htaccess file in a folder with the mp3s. I just want
to be able to do this via softpress without having to install
another ftp utility or go online to my web hosting service. If
anyone can tell me how to do this using freeway pro 4 and its ftp
uploader I would greatly appreciate it!

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10

There may be a problem here in the way you have your Document set up.

In File>Document Setup

In the window that opens, click the Output Tab

In the Resources: Drop down menu what option have you chosen?

There are 3

Common Resource Folder

Seperate Resource Folders

With HTML files

If you use Common Resource Folder - than the Resources folder will be created in your public_html or www folder on your server.

It is this Resources folder that needs the .htaccess file placed inside

It uploads the files and puts them along with everything else.

It is this Resources folder that should contain “everything else” i.e. graphics files, js files etc. and your mp3s and .mov files

The html files should be on the folder that encloses the Resources folder

Does this help?

David

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11

yes this is all good help. thank you! but, er, it is still not working. I’m using the action “download file.” “Common Resource” folder is selected. If I use the websites ftp server, I see all of the files (jpgs, mp3s, etc) in the same area. This resources folder is in the main www folder. I uploaded an htaccess file, then renamed it .htaccess . It is in the resources folder. When I go to the page and click on the download button, it still opens a new window with the mp3 file. see for yourself: http://www.clubrecs.com/downloadclr4502.html

All I can think of is that I made the .htaccess file incorrectly? I just used a text edit program, pasted in the text walter suggested above, and saved it. should it have been saved as an html file? or an rtf file?

Thanks as usual!
-Cindy

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12

I was thinking about this this morning. I may have not given you the
correct syntax. AddType is for adding a new mime type (one that the
server has never heard of), but this is an existing mime type that
you want to be treated differently. For that, you need to use ForceType:

<FIlesMatch "*.(mp3|mov)">
	ForceType application/octet-stream
</FilesMatch>

Replace both AddType references in your htaccess file with this block
of code, and you should be good to go.

Walter

On Mar 5, 2008, at 2:50 AM, Cindy wrote:

yes this is all good help. thank you! but, er, it is still not
working. I’m using the action “download file.” “Common Resource”
folder is selected. If I use the websites ftp server, I see all of
the files (jpgs, mp3s, etc) in the same area. This resources folder
is in the main www folder. I uploaded an htaccess file, then
renamed it .htaccess . It is in the resources folder. When I go to
the page and click on the download button, it still opens a new
window with the mp3 file. see for yourself: http://www.clubrecs.com/
downloadclr4502.html

All I can think of is that I made the .htaccess file incorrectly? I
just used a text edit program, pasted in the text walter suggested
above, and saved it. should it have been saved as an html file? or
an rtf file?

Thanks as usual!
-Cindy

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