Doubt in Download File

[Alvinwind]

Hi, I am a newbie in PHP and currently developing a site that allow my users to download pic from my server. When users clicked on the hyperlink which links to a pic, that file will be downloaded automatically to the user's D:\\My Picture without pop-up a dialogue-box asking where the file should be saved.

I hope you guys can provide me sample code or direct me to any useful sites. Your reply is very much appreciated.

Thank you.

[john tindell]

It is not possible to do this with PHP alone, as it would be a major secutiry risk.

The only way possible would be to have a program on the users computer that downloads the file, then you would be able to select where it would be saved, otherwise the answer is no.

[Alvinwind]

Hi John,
Do you mean the one in http://www.webshots.com/ ?
If that is the case, how to make that desktop application communicates with my server. And do I still need PHP?

[visualAd]

You don't need PHP, but there is no reason why PHP cannot be used on the server side part of your application. Communicating with a PHP script via a desktop application isn't actually that hard as you can tunnel the communication through HTTP.

You will require the use of Sockets (WinSock - for Windows) or RPC, such as SOAP of XML-RPC. If you have a look in the Distributed Computing Forum there are many examples and code which describe how to communicate with server side applications via HTTP.

[Alvinwind]

Hi visualAd,

Thank you for your advice. I am still new in the socket programming. Haha. In fact, I only tried it in Linux platform. Not yet explore it in Windows platform.

So, if I wanna use DotNet to develop the desktop application, does Distributed Computing Forum still useful for me?