Counting Downloads and display to user

[eluser]Drayen[/eluser]
Hi guys, I know this is probably relatively simple but I've had a lot of trouble trying to do this.

Let's say my view is view.php and my controller is controller.php. The index would display some dynamic files and I want the downloads for each one to be shown next to the download link. I also need a dynamic redirect since there will be multiple pages.

What's the best way to go about this? I'd prefer if the user never even left the page and if the download is clicked it would simply just add +1 to the downloads without even having to direct them somewhere else and send them back.

The way I had it was the download links pointed to a download function in the same controller, but upon clicking it would always take me to a white page and I wasn't sure if even post variables can be passed through a normal download link or required form submission.

Thanks for any help guys.