ptg16476052Summary 36512
Planning Your Forms
Before you start creating complex forms for your web pages, you should do some plan-
ning that will save you time and trouble in the long run.
First, decide what information you need to collect. That might sound obvious, but you
need to think about this before you start worrying about the mechanics of creating the
form.
Next, review this information and match each item with a type of form control. Ask your-
self which type of control is most suited to the type of questions you’re asking. If you
need a yes or no answer, radio buttons or check boxes work great, but the textarea ele-
ment is overkill. Try to make life easier for the users by making the type of control fit the
question. This way, analyzing the information using a script, if necessary, will be much
easier.
You also need to coordinate with the person writing the CGI script to match variables
in the script with the names you’re assigning to each control. There isn’t much point in
naming every control before collaborating with the script author—after all, you’ll need
all the names to match. You also can create lookup tables that contain expansive descrip-
tions and allowable values of each form control.
Finally, you might want to consider validating form input through scripting. Using
JavaScript, you can embed small programs in your web pages. One common use for
JavaScript is writing programs that verify a user’s input is correct before she submits a
form. I discuss JavaScript in more detail in Lesson 17.
Summary
As you can see, the wonderful world of forms is full of different types of form controls
for your visitors. This truly is a way to make your web pages interactive.
Be cautious, however. Web surfers who are constantly bombarded with forms are likely
to get tired of all that typing and move on to another site. You need to give them a reason
for playing!
Table 12.2 summarizes the HTML tags used today. Remember these points and you can’t
go wrong:
n Use the form element to create your forms.
n Always assign an action to a form.
n Create form controls with the input element or the other form control elements.
n Test your forms extensively.