General platform question   

Hi guys

I've got a project I need to build, and I'm unsure which technology is the 
best way of building it. Let me first explain the idea...

We want to be able to allow tracked downloads from our website, that's easy 
for the user to inititate. We want them to be able to "save as" so they can 
put it where they want on their own hard drive BUT we want to make sure they 
stay at a certain web page while the file downloads. This rules out normal 
link to file, or stream writing, as once the Download dialog is running, they 
can navigate away (as far as I'm aware, please correct me if there is a way 
round that?).

As far as I can tell there are 2 ways of doing this...

1) ActiveX control - add an ActiveX control to the destination page which 
should allow us to give the user the option to select the destination, and 
download the file. If they navigate away, the activex is gone and the 
download stops. There are a couple of problems here.... 

- a. We won't know at development time what the page showing is, so I'll 
have to "inject" the <object> code into the page, or use a Frameset. As soon 
as we get into framesets, it becomes easy to find out how it works and get 
round.

- b. They need to download an ActiveX control before they can use the site. 
How do I get it signed? Will the ActiveX work on a mac?

2) The other option I was looking at was Silverlight 2.0. However, I'd still 
have many of the same problems - injection or using an iFrame, and as far as 
I can tell from what I've read, Silverlight doesn't have access to anywhere 
on the server OTHER than ClientBin? And can it even write to the users hard 
drive?!

What, in your valued opinion, is the best way of developing this system for 
cross-platform, cross-browser availability? Is there anything I should know, 
or any other way of developing this other than the ways stated above?!

Your guidance is much appreciated.


Dan

date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:47:01 -0700   author:   musosdev am