Downloading mp3 files as an album

[jhatter]

Hi,

A friend who is a singer wishes to sell his 'album' (sorry if that's an antiquated term) digitally from his website.

What is the best way/format to store a collection of mp3 files to be downloaded from a single link as an album. ie I don't want the user to have to download it from 15 individual links, for example.

Also, once the album has downloaded it should just open and play without the user needing to unstuff or unzip it.

[Beverleyh]

I'm not sure if there is a way to "chain" individual downloads - maybe a php script could do that but I imagine you'll still get 15 individual "save as" prompts before the user had them safely saved on their computer. I think you'd either be looking at one long mp3 file (can be downloaded in one-click and played without unzipping, but it would be a horrible user experience/file management), or the zip (one-click download, but unzip required, and good for user experience/file management), but it looks like your already disregarded that.

[jscheuer1]

As Beverley says, your options are perhaps more limited than you'd like. However, the good news is that there's great free software for managing mp3 and other sound files in just about any way that can actually be done:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

It cannot do the impossible. But whatever can be done can probably be done with it. And it's free and has no malware or viruses.