If using CFCONTENT and CFHEADER to stream an Excel file, will Javascript still work?

[WolfShade]

Hello, all,

I'm using a hidden iFrame that loads a page using CFCONTENT and CFHEADER to stream an Excel file from a form submit.  I'm _trying_ to use JavaScript to change the value of the button element that submits the form in the parent page.

I'm not seeing any success.  Does Javascript still run when a page uses CFCONTENT and CFHEADER?

I can't even get a simple JS alert() to work.

V/r,

^_^

[BKBK · Accepted solution]

I wouldn't expect Javascript to run when you use,

<cfheader name="Content-Disposition">

<!--- XLS --->

<cfcontent type="application/vnd.ms-excel">

<!--- XLSX --->

<!--- <cfcontent type="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet">--->

These tags result in Coldfusion sending binary content, that is, Excel code, to the browser.

[WolfShade]

Hi, BKBK‌,

I kind of thought it wouldn't work.  So, once the header information is sent and a binary follows, nothing else is executed.

Do you know of a way to use JavaScript to detect when a binary is done streaming?  I'm just trying to figure out a way to change the text of a button in the browser after a file is downloaded.

It will start out "Generate Report", then change to "Loading..." when the user clicks on it.  I'd like to switch it back to "Generate Report" after the binary either starts or is done streaming.

Thank you, and V/r,

^_^

UPDATE:  Ben Nadel figured it out.  Here's the link for anyone else who might want to do the same.

Tracking File-Download Events Using JavaScript And ColdFusion

[SemperVI]

You can't - once the browser has detected the content type - in many cases the mode of browser operation will not even load the browsers JavaScript interpreter. You should understand that the web is a very dirty place. Servers are misconfigured, files are saved and named incorrectly, and web browsers are forced to deal with it all. We’ve seen that browsers cannot trust the Content-Type header and instead must try and determine the file type of content using content detection (Magic Numbers in byte data that uniquely identifies specific file types ). So far, we have only covered content detection for binary files like images, fonts and/or popular file types lide MS Office files. This is fairly easy, since browsers can just look for magic numbers to determine the format. Imagine trying to determine if a string of text is HTML or JavaScript. Content detection for text is very tough indeed and its unlikely something like what you are looking for will ever exist -- nor should it... Perhaps you should consider loading a document object model first and then task the background task of download via a javascript operation much like you see on source forge