One issue we have not yet seen addressed is the Ajax’s inability to receive a response in any form but text. Since it is now common for web applications to offer options for exporting your data in desktop app formats — such as .doc or .xls — we wrote a jQuery plugin to facilitate requests from the front end that result in a file for download. The plugin does not actually use Ajax, but its syntax follows the conventions of jQuery's native Ajax functions, making it a natural addition to our jQuery toolset. - View it on GitHub