jQuery File Download is a cross server platform compatible jQuery plugin that allows for an Ajax-like file download experience that isn't normally possible using the web.

Source here: https://github.com/johnculviner/jquery.fileDownload/blob/master/src/Scripts/jquery.fileDownload.js

Requirements

• jQuery 1.6+

Supported and tested browsers

• Internet Explorer 6+ - Works fine for standard use cases except in < IE9 JavaScript access to the failed response HTML doesn't (and can't) work reliably due to browser iframe constraints.
• Firefox 11+ - reasonably sure it will work on earlier versions
• Chrome 17+ - reasonably sure it will work on earlier versions
• iOS 5.0+ - reasonably sure it will work on earlier versions
• Android 4.0+ - non-GET requests do not work due to a long-standing bug in the Android browser. This is handled 'gracefully' with a message to the user.

###Demo (of this exact source): http://jqueryfiledownload.apphb.com/

#Note - You must also write a cookie in conjunction with using this plugin as mentioned in the orignal post: http://johnculviner.com/post/2012/03/22/Ajax-like-feature-rich-file-downloads-with-jQuery-File-Download.aspx

####Example of writing cookie (MVC): https://github.com/johnculviner/jquery.fileDownload/blob/master/src/Common/FileDownloadAttribute.cs
The above attribute can be used on any controller action that may return a file download that you would like to use jquery.fileDownload.js with

###For more information and documentation please visit: http://johnculviner.com/category/jQuery-File-Download.aspx

###Or look at the well documented JavaScript source: https://github.com/johnculviner/jquery.fileDownload/blob/master/src/Scripts/jquery.fileDownload.js

Ruby on Rails integration

The jquery_file_download-rails gem integrates jquery.fileDownload.js into the Rails 3.1+ asset pipeline.