jQuery and Event-Driven(?)

jQuery and Event-Driven(?)

Dear all,

I don't know if what I want to do is related to event driven, so I expose my problem.
I'm developing a web portal where people can query for metals in biology. The query results can be downloaded but the zip file creation keep a long time. I would that when an user click on download link, the file creation starts and the user can visit other pages. When the creation file is finished a message or the download box appears on the visiting user's page.

Is it possible? If yes, how can do it?

Thanks in advance.
Enrico