why does google chrome open .jad file as text file rather than downloading it?

Question

I have a link on my server that lets users download the .jad file I have got. But when I open this link in Google Chrome, it opens it as a text file rather than downloading the .jad file.

Answer 1

Update mime type configuration for your server and set mime type of *.jad file extension to 'application/x-download'. This should make browser client downloading the file instead of rendering plain text of the file.

For example, if you are using apache http server you can update mime.types file by adding following line

application/x-download      jad

Answer 2

Downloading the jad file in chrome is nice, but better still is sending the BlackBerry device to the jad URL, and having it take the user to the app installation UI. To get that to happen, you have to configure a few different mime types. Quoting from Unsupported Media Type when deploying OTA Blackberry App :

cod  application/vnd.rim.cod

jad     text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor

jar     application/java-archive

I recently installed a BlackBerry app where the jad file was treated as a download. After it downloaded, I had to manually open it in the file browser. This is because the mime type was set incorrectly, and made me go through more steps than necessary to install the app.