download file to computer javascript Difference Between Internal & External Javascripts. In the mid-1990s, developers at Netscape created a simple scripting language to use as a tool to make websites more interactive and engaging. This language would eventually be known as Javascript. Many users today are unaware that the features of the email client or social-networking website they depend upon are the result of thousands of lines of clever and complex Javascript programming. Internal Javascript. In order for Javascript code to work its magic, it must somehow be incorporated in the proper location on a particular web page as the page is loaded. Internal Javascript code is code that's placed anywhere within the web page between the HTML tags . Many web developers choose to place their Javascript code before the tag. External Javascript. Javascript code placed in a file separate from the HTML code is called external Javascript. External Javascript code is written and used in the same way as internal Javascript. The file should have the ".js" extension, although virtually any other extension works with modern browsers. One important difference: The external code must not be placed between the tags, or the code will not work. The web browser must know that it needs to load external code. The web page must have the following HTML tags referencing the script: The URL tells the web where to locate and load the Javascript code. Advantages to Internal Javascript. If the number of lines of Javascript is relatively small, a web page with internal Javascript loads faster than pages that must reference external code. This is because, as the web browser loads the page and encounters the reference to the external code, it must make a separate request to the web server to fetch the code. Advantages of External Javascript. If identical code is used on several pages of a website, external Javascript files are beneficial. You only need to include a reference to the external code in those pages that actually require that code. If the Javascript code changes, only one file has to be edited; changes are instantly available to all pages needing the code. Storing Javascript in external files also makes it easier to maintain websites: The pages are less cluttered, and the web developer has fewer lines of code to wade through to make necessary edits. Fewer lines of HTML code may also help search engine spiders more thoroughly index your site and find important keywords. Finally, if a visitor moves to another page containing the same external Javascript references, the second page will load faster, because the user's browser will have cached or stored the Javascript file locally. How to download file using JavaScript only. I have an only JavaScript page and .asmx page. I want to download file using only JavaScript how can I download the file. I want to download a particular resume. I am getting resume here, 4 Answers 4. You may use different third-party libraries: jQuery.fileDownload. It takes URL as an input and downloads a file while shows a loading dialog. FileSaver.js. It takes Blob object as an input and downloads it. Blob can be acquired using XMLHttpRequest . It may also be used to save canvas -based images, dynamically generated text and any other Blob s. Or write it yourself. Now, if it is a text file, you can simply download it, create a blob, and save it: Or you can use XMLHttpRequest which works great for any types of files, including binary: Here is the working demo. Note that this fiddle downloads a file right after opening it. The file is just a random source file from GitHub. 11 Best JavaScript File Downloader Libraries. These are JavaScript libraries designed to customize file download options on your browsers. They give developers a chance to generate a download file in the browser without contact with the server. These libraries work perfectly in all HTML5 supported browsers with the use of element. A few customization and modification of libraries are needed for it to support old browsers. Now I will list down the best 11 JavaScript file downloader libraries. 1. FileSaver.js. FileSaver.js provides a solution to file saving on the client-side. It works just fine in generating files to be saved on the client-side. However, it is a good practice to implement content disposition attachment response header for more cross-browser compatibility. 2. StreamSaver.js. StreamSaver.js is a library adapted for larger files, even bigger than blobs. It is advisable when computer RAM is limited to implement StreamSaver.js. Advanced can save data directly into your physical hard drive. The data is saved asynchronously with the power of streaming API that supports progress, canceling and notification. 3. Canvas-toBlog.js. Canvas-toBlog.js is used for implementing canvas.toBlog( ) in HTML5 or canvas.toBlogHD ( ) when the browser do not support the latter natively. In either way, the Blob support function is still a requirement for many unsupported functions. implementation of the above library with Blob.js, it becomes a cross-browser. 4. Blob.js. Blob.js is implemented with other types of libraries like the canvas.toBlob( ), mainly for browsers that are not supported by canvas.toBlob natively. Blob.js implements a W3C blob interface unsupported natively by the browser. Blob.js supports all the browsers supported in FileSaver.js and more. 5. jQuery.fileDownload.js. jQuery.fileDownload.js is a cross-server platform that allows better download experience to the users. Its features include developer control over successCallback or fail callback for them to have total control over the user experience. In conjunction jQuery UI, a developer can easily implement a UI modal that tells the user when a download is occurring, when it disbands the modal and give feedback to the users in a friendly manner that download error just occurred. In jQuery.fileDownload.js. File downloads don’t occur on the current window so that if something went wrong, the users don’t have to leave the current page. 6. Js File Downloader. Js File Downloader is simple, no dependency library able to download a file from the browser and show the progress bar to guide users on download speed and download status. 7. downloads. downloadjs is one of the file downloader libraries that use client-side JavaScript. It has 1191 stars on GitHub as of the date I am publishing this article, currently licensed under MIT and uses free public CDN web front-end services. downloadjs is proudly sponsored by Cloudflare, agolia, and DigitalOcean. 8. JavaScript Assets Downloader. JavaScript asset downloader is a collection of links to browser versions of popular JavaScript libraries. It is used to quickly download and compare libraries if they are at par with the local current version update wise. 9. riloadr. riloadr is a cross-browser library that is framework independent and it is highly responsive to image loaders written in JavaScript. They deliver optimized and contextual image sizes responsive to layouts and different resolutions. riloadr has no dependencies, easy-to-use and has absolute control because it processes only what you command to process. A noticeable feature of riloadr is its ability to make one request per image only. 10. PDF.js. PDF.js is a portable document format viewer built with HTML5 in mind. It allows users to download or upload, render and view PDF files in different browsers, which supports PDF.js, for browsers without support, additional plugins may be required beforehand. 11. .js. File Manager.js is a rich user interface widget that guides users when downloading web files and folders in a handy way. It allows working with hierarchical data. It is possible to download and search for necessary files in the folder. With file manager.js, you can perform any contemporary operations like copy, paste, cut, rename and more. Conclusion. It exists a rich JavaScript file downloader libraries. It is easy to implement JavaScript file downloader using libraries that coding from scratch, it saves a bunch of development time and reduces the chances of bugs in the code. I mentioned 11 best of them in my opinion, but your list could be different, don’t fret anyway, but offer a suggestion of a file downloader you feel it should be on the list. Your comments are welcome! Download File Using JavaScript/jQuery. I have a very similar requirement specified here. I need to have the user's browser start a download manually when $('a#someID').click(); But I cannot use the window.href method, since it replaces the current page contents with the file you're trying to download. Instead I want to open the download in new window/tab. How is this possible? 29 Answers 29. Use an invisible