File attachments in MATLAB Answers open as links

When I try to download file attachments included with posts to MATLAB answers they instead open in my Chrome Web Browser. If they are text files I can still copy and paste them into a new document and then save them as a file, but for non text files, e.g. .mat files I can not see or use them at all. My OS is Windows 7, and as I mentioned my web browser is Google Chrome. I saw an earlier question which described the same problem back in 2015, https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/245817-forum-file-attachments-broke, but it wasn't clear to me what the solution if any was, from this thread.

Maybe there is something simple I am misunderstanding about how to use the MATLAB answers site.

If anyone knows, please let me know how I can download file attachments in MATLAB Answers rather than have them open in my web browser.

[dpb]

Try right click to see if Chrome gives option to "Save Link"...

The Answers links for a long time always ended up having a .txt suffix added to whatever was the actual file name under Firefox, but I notice here recently that has apparently been fixed...not sure whether it was the fault of the browser or the forum coding style...

[Rik]

I believe I have recently seen a thread (opened by Madhan?) where the culprit seemed to be the MIME encoding in Firefox. But as Alex suggests, 'save link as' should work. You could even manually remove an extra .txt that might be appended.

Browsers are a prime example of something that seems very simple, but is (and needs to be) surprisingly complicated under the hood.

[Jan]

I haven't seen this problem in other programming forums, where downloading works fluently for text and binary files as expected. I consider this as another bug of the Matlab Answers forum.

[dpb]

I've never noticed it elsewhere, either, altho I rarely download other files in a similar manner so don't really have much of a base by which to judge.

It was so prevalent w/ Answers that I can almost always just uparrow to retriive the start for the OS rename operation.

[Jon]

Maybe this is a new question, but if we consider this a bug in MATLAB Answers, where do you report it (or in general any bugthat we encounter in MATLAB answers) Do you just report it through the usual MATLAB support bug reporting?

[Rik]

This thread tends to also get views from Mathworks staff. I'm considering opening a new one, as that thread is also getting slow to load and navigate due to its size.

[dpb]

Indeed it has grown beyond facilities to easily manage...if were way to mark so no longer make anything except comments to existing Answers (so as to not preclude additional useful info on points made there), but prevent adding further Answers would be agoodthing to be able to do so.

[Rik]

alea iacta est

[Guillaume]

Indeed there was a problem with firefox where mat files (and possibly other types) always ended up being saved with a .txt extension. Indeed it was started by Madhan and I was the one saying that it had to do with incorrect mine type. I've reported it directly to the Answer team and it appears to be fixed now.

As for reporting bugs with the forum, the answer wish list and bug reports is probably the best place as indeed the Answer devs do read it. Individual posts may work as well but they may get overlooked. If one of the CAB members spot the post they may point the devs at it. Raising a bug report through a service request should also work.

Thanks Rik for starting a new wish list, the current one was so unwieldy that I didn't bother opening it anymore.

Answer 1

[Alex Mcaulley]

You need to click with the right button of the mouse the link and then click in "Save link as".

[Jon]

Thank you, and to the others who also suggested the right click, save link as approach. I had actually gotten as far as right clicking on the attachments, and saw the option "save link as" but misunderstood, and thought this would literally save the text in the link as a file. So I didn't try it. Anyhow, glad to learn that there is a simple method for downloading the attachments, and as I thought might be the case, I was just missing something about how to use the MATLAB Answers site.

[John D'Errico]

Nope. That is how you save a file. Just right click. I sometimes forget to do that myself.

[Image Analyst]

For completeness, here is the list of current bugs Bug Reports in latest version

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