HTML FORMS

Introduction
For a website to be successful, it is important to be able to get feedback from visitors to your site. This could be a request for information, general comments on your site or even a product order. This could be done with a MAILTO: link but providing a form has several advantages over a simple email.
.. It makes it easier for people to send the information
.. A form gives you greater control over the information that is sent.
.. Form results can be organised in a way that makes them easy to store in a spreadsheet or database.
These fields can be added to your forms:
 Text field
 Password field
 Hidden field
 Text area
 Check box
 Radio button
 Drop-down menu
 Submit button
 Reset button
 Image button
Form Handlers
When a form is filled in by a visitor to your site and sent, the results of the form need to be processed in some way. One of the most common ways to process form results is with a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) script. This is a small program that the information entered in to the form is sent to as soon as the form is submitted. The purpose of this script is to accept the results of a form, organise the results and send the results to an appropriate location, such as a text file, database or email address. In these exercises we won’t go into creating CGI scripts since that is quite different from HTML and requires some programming knowledge. There are many free CGI scripts on the Internet that you can download and use for your own forms.1 Many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) also provide scripts for the use of their users so you can often get by without having to learn how to create your own scripts. In addition to CGI there are some other technologies available for linking forms with databases such as Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP), PHP and Allaire’s Cold Fusion.

The FORM Tag
Forms are placed in your document using a tag which must have a closing tag. You can have more than one form in a document as long as they don’t overlap. I.e. one form must finish before the next one begins. A tag specifies two main things.
.. The location of the program or script used to process the results of the form and send them to an appropriate location
.. The method that will be used to send data from the form
The layout of the form is specified by the form fields. These can be placed anywhere between the and tags.

Each of the various input types is described below.
TYPE="text"
A text input element is for entering a small amount of text. It uses an tag with a TYPE=”text” attribute. It uses the NAME=, SIZE=, MAXLENGTH=, ALIGN=, TABINDEX= and VALUE= attributes.
• The size option defines the width of the field. That is how many visible characters it can contain.
• The maxlength option defines the maximum length of the field. That is how many characters can be entered in the field.
• If you do not specify a maxlength, the visitor can easily enter more characters than are visible in the field at one time.
• The name setting adds an internal name to the field so the program that handles the form can identify the fields.
• The value setting defines what will appear in the box as the default value.
• The align setting defines how the field is aligned.
Valid entries are: TOP, MIDDLE, BOTTOM, RIGHT, LEFT, TEXTTOP, BASELINE, ABSMIDDLE, ABSBOTTOM. The alignments are explained in the image section. You can learn about the different alignments here.
• The tabindex setting defines in which order the different fields should be activated when the visitor clicks the tab key.
Example
Name:
TYPE="password"
This is the same as a text field except that any characters entered will appear as * as they are typed. It has all the same attributes as a text input field except that there is no VALUE attribute.
Example
Password:

TYPE="checkbox"
A checkbox input can be used for boolean fields where there are only two choices. It can use the NAME=, VALUE= and CHECKED attributes. When several checkbox inputs share the same name, their results will be put into the same field. This allows users to select more than one value for a category.
Example
Member:

TYPE="radio"
Radio inputs allow a user to select from several options where only one can be selected. Each option in a list has its own tag and each must have the same name. One option can be pre-selected with the CHECKED attribute.
Example
Note that the < and > special characters have been used to display the less than < and greater than > symbol.
Age <=20:
Age 21-30:
Age 31-40:
Age >40:

TYPE="file"
This field allows a user to specify the name of a file to be sent as an attachment with the form results. Normally a browse button will appear next to the field to allow the user to browse for the location of the file on their computer. The NAME=, SIZE= and MAXLENGTH= attributes may be used. File inputs are not widely supported in browsers.
Example
File to send:

TYPE="hidden"
Some CGI scripts make use of hidden fields within the form to accept additional parameter information (such as an email address to send the results to or a subject for the email). These are passed to the server when the form is submitted. Normally they will contain a NAME= and VALUE= attribute.
Example

This might be used to provide a subject for the form results when they are sent to an email address. Forms may also have hidden fields to do things like specify an email address to send the results to or specify an html file to display once the results are submitted (confirmation page).
TYPE="submit" and TYPE="reset" These inputs both provide buttons that affect the results of the form. Both have a VALUE= attribute which determines the text to appear on the button. A submit button can also have a NAME= attribute. When a user clicks a submit button, the results of the form will be sent. When a user clicks a reset button, the contents of the form’s fields are set to their initial state.
Example

TYPE="image" This type of input can be used in place of a submit button. Instead of a button, it will show an image, which will submit the form results when it is clicked. This type of input typically has a NAME= and SRC= attribute but it can also include attributes common to IMG tags such as ALIGN=. Although an image can look a lot better than a plain submit button, image inputs can cause difficulties with text browsers.
Example

Select Menus
As the name implies, select menus allow a user to select from a list of options. The menu begins with a tag and ends with a tag. The select tag has the following attributes.
MULTIPLE
This attribute enables more than one option to be selected by holding down the [CTRL] key, which is useful for certain types of forms. Particularly when used with an online database.
NAME=
Name of the list that will be used in the results to identify the field.
SIZE=
Number of rows to appear in the list. The default is 1, which will mean that one option will be visible but an arrow will appear to the right. This arrow will bring down a list when clicked. If values of more than 1 are set, the list will show that number of rows with a scroll bar on the side. Within the select tag, each item in the list is set with an tag. An option tag may have the following attributes.
SELECTED
One option in the list can have this attribute, which will mean that particular option will be initially selected.
VALUE=
Value that will be submitted with the form. If no value is specified, the text in the list itself will be used.
Text Areas Text areas are used where a large amount of text needs to be entered. Common examples are where you want to provide a space on the form for comments to be entered. Text areas begin with a tag and end with a tag. Anything between the start and end tag will appear in the field on the page. If there is nothing between the start and end tag, the field will be blank to start with. Text areas can have the following attributes.
COLS=
Width of the field in characters. The width of a text area will be quite different in Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator so don’t count on getting them consistent.
ROWS=
Number of rows that will appear.
NAME=
Name of the text area that will be used in the results to identify the field.
Example
Comments: Enter your comments here