INTRODUCTION TO FORMS

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Basic Tutorial
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frames
sound
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forms
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Introduction
Getting started
<input> basics
<input> Types
Form Properties
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<button> tag
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Java &JavaScript
event handlers

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Forms essentially have 2 component

Look at out loan calculating example again

You have a series of inputs you can fill in just like a paper form. Inputs can range from text boxes, to tick boxes to buttons

When you hit the button on the form the data entered is submitted. The actual form properties determine where that data goes to

At a simplest level pressing a form button can be used to trigger an event

For example
Click on this button and you get our version of those site navigation maps you often see

We teach you how to do this later

Or it can send the data on

It can send the data in the form of an e-mail and we'll be working towards creating a simple comments/guestbook using this

Or it can send the data to another program which processes the information (called an form handler).

In our example above the data you enter is sent to a JavaScript form handler on the page which processes the data and comes up with the answers

There are a range of different form handlers available. (Don't get worried we're not really going to focus on this and you can create lots of forms without knowing about these)

They fall into 2 types

Server-sided scripting which sit on your website server (or 3rd person site) when processing the data.

Client sided scripting like JavaScript or Java (for more on these click here). Here the script is downloaded and run on the client/browsers computer.

A common server sided form handler is CGI (Common gateway interface) scripts.
It is much better at complex activities (e.g. creating a site search engines, webcounters etc.). There are more advanced scripting languages also used now like PHP and ASP

Not all ISP offer to support CGI and other script support. Others may limit those you can use and not to allow you to write your own. You can get round this by using use CGI on other sites to work round this . Many 3rd party sites offer this for free in exchange for advertisements (see our links for more details)

CGI and their interactions with forms are not so easy. Hence we're keeping things brief regard these.

Lets now look at adding forms with Composer. You'll need to know how to add HTML (click here to refresh your mind)

FORMS MAIN

Adding Forms

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