You can use a $button widget to trigger a tm-download-file message, like this:
<$button> export selected tiddlers
<$action-sendmessage $message="tm-download-file"
$param="$:/core/templates/exporters/JsonFile"
exportFilter="[tag[xyz]] [author[xyz]]"
filename="tiddlers.json"/>
</$button>
enjoy,
-e