How to hide FTP address in a download site?

[FatDaz]

I'm developing a download section to a secure area of my company's web site.

The problem I have is how to allow client's to select a file for download, but for them not to see the actual URL to the FTP site, which contains the username and password.

Simple <A> tags are no good since the status bar always shows the full URL.

I've tried messing with page redirection, whereby the link jumps to another page, i.e.

Download_Manager.aspx?DownloadID=123

And this page then redirects to the relavent FTP address. This works to some extent, however I find the URL still appears in the Browser title bar while the browser searches for the FTP location.

Another problem is the URL can still be intercepted if the user stops the browser while the FTP address is being searched for.

I've also tried using <IFRAME SRC="ftp://xxxxxxx"> type elements, but then the parent window does not close when downloading commences, and also you could find the URL by looking at the HTML source code.

What I'd ideally like, which I've seen on similar download sites, is a page to popup saying...

Please wait...downloading will commence shortly.

while the browser searches for the FTP location. Then as soon as the download begins, the browser window closes down.

Has anyone suggestions on achieving this? Its quite a lengthy question, so if anything isn't clear, please let me know.

Thanks.

[Cander]

you can try in the page_load event of a seperate page doing a response.redirect to the file. That code will be on the server so no one will see it

Response.Redirect("locationtofile")

[FatDaz]

Thanks.

I've already tried this whereby the link on the main page, actually has something like...

<A HREF="Download_Manager.aspx?DownloadID=123">Click HERE</A>

And the Form_Load event for the Download_Manager.aspx page then looks for the download ID, and redirects to the required page.

The only problem with this method is if the user stops the browser which is redirecting, then the full FTP URL is displayed in the address bar.

I've managed to work around it by replacing the original link from a simple <A> element, to instead fire a sub routine on the client side to open a new window, i.e.

window.open "Download_Manager.aspx?DownloadID=123",Null , "titlebar=no"

I was just trying to avoid as much client side scripting as possible, so if you have any other ideas on approaching this, I'd appreciate to know.

[Cander]

frames is probably the only other choice really other than the popup window with no addessbar.