Since you are using the simple download monitor plugin for the download link, I would recommend that you contact their support forum: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/simple-download-monitor/
You can directly link to a media file, but how fetching it is handled depends on the user’s browser configuration. What someone’s browser does with a linked media file is beyond your control. The typical default behavior is to play any video file in a built-in player. This player usually has a download option somewhere, or users could right-click, then Save video as… to save the video file. Or simply right-click the original link itself, then Save link as… About all you can do with a direct link is to provide the link and give some instruction to users on how to obtain the file itself.
Alternately, you could stream the file’s data via the Fetch or Stream APIs. If such a stream includes a Content-Disposition: attachment header, the browser is most likely going to prompt the user to save the file instead of playing it. You still cannot control what someone’s browser does, but by sending appropriate headers it’s more likely going to do what you want.
Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately the last paragraph I don’t quite understand, as I’m quite a novice in website building. But thanks anyway.
You’re welcome. Since you’re a novice, my last suggestion would be difficult for you to accomplish unless you hired a professional coder to help you. Someone proficient in JavaScript and PHP coding. Simply providing a link and some basic instruction to the end user would be far easier to accomplish. But if you’re keen to implement my last suggestion, you could find professional help at https://jobs.wordpress.net .
Thanks. I now also got an answer from the simple download monitor plugin team…there was an option within the plugin to solve that problem (php dispatch)…So it’s all good.