Name of presentation

Creating Forms

Tutorial VI

HTML files or part of files made to be filled in by viewer / reader for the purpose of submitting information to the forms originator.

HTML Forms

CGI ( Common Gateway Interface) Script

is any program or set of commands running on the Web server that receives data from the Web page and then acts on that data to perform a certain task.

Elements of Forms:

Input boxes for text and numerical entries

Radio buttons also called option buttons, to select a single option from a predefined list

Selection lists for long lists of options, usually in a drop-down list box

Check boxes to specify an item as either being present or absent

Text areas for extended entries that might include several lines of text

Submit and Reset buttons to either submit the form to the CGI script or to reset the form to its original state

CGI script can be written in variety of computer languages such as the following:

AppleScript

C / C++

Perl

The UNIX shell

TCL

Visual Basic

JavaScript

Syntax of Form:

Form elements and layout tags

Working with Input Boxes

Input Box is a single-line box into which the user can enter text or numbers.

Syntax:

where option is the type of input field, and Text is the name assigned to the input field.

Example

Setting a Default Value for an Input Box

where value is the default text or number that will appear in the field.

Example

Creating a Password field

Password Field is identical to an input box except that the characters typed by the user are displayed as bullets or asterisks.

CREATING A SELECTION LIST

To create a selection list, use the following set of HTML tags:

Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 . .

Where the NAME property is the field name of the selection list, and each tag represents an entry in the list.

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Example

To allow the user to select multiple items in the selection list, use the following tag:

To display several items in the selection list, or to change the selection list style from a drop-down list box to a fully displayed list box, use the following tag:

where value is the number of items displayed in the list box.

Working with Radio Buttons

Syntax:

Where text is the name assigned to the field containing the radio button, and value is the value of the radio button.

Example

HomeBusinessGovernmentEducational InstitutionOther

To create a radio button, use the following HTML tag:

Where the NAME property specifies the field containing the radio button, and the VALUE property specifies the value sent to the CGI script.

To make a particular radio button the default option, use the following tag:

WORKING WITH CHECK BOXES

To create a check box, use the following tag:

where the NAME property specifies the field containing the check box, and the VALUE property specifies the value sent to the CGI script if the check box is selected.

To make a check box selected by default, use the following tag:

Example

Windows 95/98/NTWindows 3.X/DOSMacintoshUNIXOther

CREATING A TEXT AREA

To create a text area for extended text entry, use the following tag:

Default Text

Where the Default Text is the text that initially appears in the text area (this is optional)

To control how text is wrapped in a text area, use the following tag:

Where option is OFF, SOFT (or VIRTUAL) ,or HARD (or PHYSICAL). OFF turns off text wrapping. SOFT (VIRTUAL) turns text wrapping on, but does not send text wrapping information to the Web server. HARD (PHYSICAL) turns text wrapping on and also sends this information to the Web server.

Example

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