Downloading an article's audio: offline listening, no surprises
The MP3 button lets a reader take an article's audio version away to listen offline. What it actually downloads, what it respects, and what the publisher keeps control of.
A good share of your readers will never listen to an article in front of the screen. They want the audio in their pocket: on a commute with no signal, in the car, at the gym, anywhere a web page is the wrong interface. The player's download button, the one marked "MP3", is for them. It looks like a small thing, but its exact behaviour is worth explaining, because "download a file" hides two or three decisions that separate a serious tool from a hack.
What the button actually does
When a listener clicks "MP3", they get an audio file on their device, like any other download. What they do not see is the path that file travels, and that is where the quality lives.
The player does not point to the raw address of the file in our storage. It points to a route that belongs to us, which answers with a Content-Disposition: attachment header. That detail has a concrete consequence: the file genuinely downloads, it does not replace the page. A link aimed straight at the storage address would behave differently in most browsers, because a link's download attribute is only honoured for a same-origin target. Elsewhere the click turns back into ordinary navigation: the WeDispatch player vanishes and the browser's native audio player takes its place, with its own controls. The player stays where it belongs, and the file leaves as a file. This is the same standard we hold for the audio player itself: what you see should match what happens.
The downloaded file carries a readable name, derived from the article's title, not a technical identifier. The listener finds "the right article" in their downloads without having to decode a coded filename.
The part that matters: the download respects your access rules
Here is the point we want to spell out plainly, because a shortcut here would be dangerous. The download route never takes a file address or a storage path: it takes an article's identifier, and it replays exactly the same access check as the player, with the same code.
The consequence is clean. A visitor entitled only to an extract does not download the full article, and does not download their extract either: the extract is for listening, not for taking away. In practice, if your content sits behind a registration wall or is reserved for subscribers, the audio file inherits the same rule as the page. The download does not open a back door to what the player itself refuses to play. Stated like that it sounds obvious, but it is exactly the kind of obvious thing a technical shortcut can betray without anyone noticing, until the day a file link starts circulating.
What the publisher keeps in hand
The download is not forced on anyone. It is a per-site setting, on by default, that you can switch off. Some publishers want listening to stay on their page, for audience measurement or because the content is premium; others specifically want their readers to be able to take the audio with them. Both positions are legitimate, and the call is yours, article by article or for the whole site, without touching any code.
If you turn the download off, the button disappears cleanly from the player: there is no button that "does nothing", which would be the worst of both worlds. If you leave it on, it appears across every player template, because there is only one download button, relayed by both the options sheet and the card footer. One mechanism, one behaviour to understand.
Who it is actually for
Offline listening is not a gimmick. For a reader with a daily journey and no reliable connection, it is the difference between listening to your article and forgetting it. For accessibility, it means being able to take a long text away and listen at one's own pace, on one's own device, with one's own system settings. For a specialist outlet, it is a service that adds value to a subscription without costing anything more to produce, since the file already exists.
The limit is simple and just as simply stated: the downloaded file is the full narration of the article, as you generated it, not a lighter version or a compilation. If your article is long, so is the file. And since the download follows your access rules, it bypasses nothing: it is a comfort feature for your readers, not a hole in your model.
The rest comes down to how you prepare your audio, a subject we cover elsewhere, from the French text to speech page to the choice of template in our piece on which player template fits your blog. The download itself needs no particular setup: it does exactly what it says, and nothing else.
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