Force a link to download an MP3 rather than play it?

Question

Ive got an anchor link

Download 

How do I ma

Answer 1

Skip The Controller Action

You don't even need the download controller action, you can just generate a download-friendly link like so:

In your attachment.rb

def download_url
  S3 = AWS::S3.new.buckets[ 'bucket_name' ] # This can be done elsewhere as well,
                                            # e.g config/environments/development.rb

  url_options = { 
    expires_in:                   60.minutes, 
    use_ssl:                      true, 
    response_content_disposition: "attachment; filename=\"#{file_name}\""
  }

  S3.objects[ self.path ].url_for( :read, url_options ).to_s
end

In your views

<%= link_to 'Download Avicii by Avicii', attachment.download_url %>

If you still wanted to keep your download action for some reason then just use this:

In your attachments_controller.rb

def download
  redirect_to @attachment.download_url
end

Thanks to guilleva for his guidance.

Answer 2

You can manage your file downloading with separate controller, if you don't want to eal with HTTP server configurations.

So you can send_file with disposition option as attachment.

Answer 3

Depends on how you / where you serve the file itself. I do not have experience with ruby but if you can alter the headers(most platforms offer this option) of the http response you can force a download. This requires:

Content-Type: application/force-download

I guess it will use "Content-type: application/octet-stream" by default which will cause the browser to play it.

But this will only work if you have control over the server/location that holds the actual file since you need to change the response when the file is sent to the browser.