Creating Forms

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You can use forms to collection information from the people who visit your Web site. For example, you might gather answers or feedback from your Web visitors, or enable them to purchase goods or services from your Web site. There are several different types of forms you can create. For example, you can add a search form to allow your users to search through your Web site for key information. You can add data collection forms to gather information from users, such as name and e-mail addresses.Your form my be as simple as guest book or a complex as a detailed survey. You can use forms to customize a user’s content, such as displaying the user’s name when he or she logs onto your site. You can also use forms to help customers make a purchase on your site.


How Forms Work HTML for FORMS Forms Design
You can find numerous uses for frames with a multi-page Web site. You can use frames to display a fixed page at the top of the screen and scrollable page in the reminder of the screen. For example, you might use a navigation page at the top with the links to pages on your site. When a user clicks a link in the top frame, the frame below displays the content. Or you might use side-by-side frames to display a picture in one frame and text in another. Forms are comprised of three important parts: the <FORM> tag, the form elements, and the submit button. When designing and building a form, you can write HTML to define the form structure and appearance as well ad define the difference input objects you want to include on the form, such as text fields or radio buttons. All forms should include a Submit button to send the data for processing. You can place your forms directly on a Web page or save them as separate HTML document and link to the form. Before typing up a form, spend time thinking about how you want the user to interact with the form, what sort of data you want to collect, and how you want the form to appear. Be sure to add label text to your form elements that explains what type of information you want from the user, and give users enough space to enter their input.

Types of Forms

There are several different types of forms you can create. For example, you can add a search form to allow your users to search through your Web site for key information. You can add data collection forms to gather information from users, such as name and e-mail addresses.Your form my be as simple as guest book or a complex as a detailed survey. You can use forms to customize a user’s content, such as displaying the user’s name when he or she logs onto your site. You can also use forms to help customers make a purchase on your site.


Types of Form Elements:

  1. Text Boxes
  2. Check Boxes
  3. Radio Buttons
  4. Menus
  5. Submit and Reset Buttons

1. Text Boxes

Text boxes are input fields, designed specifically for users to type data into, such as typing a name or comment. Text boxes can be small to collect limited characters, such as phone numbers, or very large to collect paragraphs of input from the user. You might use text boxes to gather information such as names, addresses, e-mail addresses, feedback comments, and more.

2. Check Boxes

Check boxes enable a user to make a choice out of a group of choices by activating a value. For example, if you want to collection information on whether the Web site visitor is male or female, you can add two check boxes to indicate their answer. You can allow users to select just one box or multiple check boxes. For example, you might offer the user check box options, regarding their musical preferences, allowing them to select different styles.

3. Radio Buttons

Radio buttons are the tiny circle buttons found on forms, named for their resemblance to the buttons found on automobile radios in decades past. You use radio buttons in a group of options. Unlike check boxes, however the user is allowed to choose only one button to make their choice. For example, if you include a feedback form your page that rates your Web site, you might present radio buttons, for the values Excellent, Good, Average, and Poor. The user can choose only one of the four options.

4. Menus

Menus are a great way to present a list of choices to a Web page visitor. You can present menus as drop-down lists to free up space on your form. Like radio buttons, users can choose only on one item from the menu list. A drop-down list of states, for example, is a common menu found on collection forms. The user scrolls through the list and selects his or her state from the menu.

5. Submit and Reset Buttons

Every form needs a button the user can press to submit their data. Known as the submit button, this button sends the data to the Web server for processing. Until the user clicks this button, the data is not collected. You might also consider adding a reset button to your page that allows the user to clear all the input fields and start over.

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