Forms

Why Forms?

• The best Known form on the web is probably the search box that sits right in the middle of Google’s homepage.

Form Controls

• There are several types of form controls that you can use to collect information from visitors to your site.
  • Adding Text: Text input, Password input, Text area
  • Making Choices: Radio buttons, Checkboxes, Drop-down boxes
  • Submitting Forms: Submit buttons, Image buttons, Uploading files

How Forms Work

• A user fills in a form and then presses a button to submit the information to the server.
• The name of each form control is sent to the server along with the value the user enters or selects
• The sever processes the information using a programming language such as PHP, C#, VB.net, or Java.
• The server creates a new page to send back to the browser based on the information received.

Form Structure

• Form controls live inside a <Form> element.
• Every from element requires an action attribute.

Text Input

• The <input> element is used to create several different form controls.
• type=”text”; When the type attribute has a value of text, it creates a single-line text input.
• name
• maxlength

Password Input

• type=”password”
• name
• size, maxlength

Text Area

• the <textarea> element is used to create a multi-line text input.

Radio Button

• type=”radio”
• name
• value
• checked

Checkbox

• type=”checkbox”
• name
• value
• checked

Drop-down List Box

• <select>
• name
• <option>
• value
• selected

Multiple Select Box

• <select>
• size
• multiple

File Input Box

• <input>
• type=”file”

Submit Button

• <input>
• name
• value

Image Button

• <input>
• type=”image”

Button & Hidden Controls

• <button>
• <input>
• type=”hidden”