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Forms


Web sites can be a great marketing tool ...but if the only way a person can contact you is via E mail... then they are the ones to determine what information they will give you and therefore the information you receive may be incomplete.

By building a Form Responder you can ask them to give you specific information... with which you can build a mailing list database, find out demographics of your visitors to figure out who your market is,develop an E mail list, Develop online Ordering Forms or questionairres, etc.( of course nothing says they're going to fill in all the blanks)

Building the form is a peice of cake.

Getting them to work can be another story since it can require that you learn a programming language which executes a program usually using whats known as Common Gateway Interface (CGI). Langugaes such as PERL, C/C++, BASIC are commonly used languges as are ColdFusion,dHTML, pHTML and NT Servers can use whats known as Active Server Pages using VisualBasic or VJscript.

But luckily for you... programmers have been giving away free code for years and with some patience you can actually learn theses techniques. There are all sorts of other cool things you can do with CGI programs such as build your own page counter or create log files which track your visitors, build message boards or your own chat room.

If you are going to learn to program you first need to know what type of Server your pages are stored on and whether or not you even have a cgi-bin where you can store your programs. CGI Programs require special permissions be set that allow the program to execute. Some FTP programs allow you to set permissions and if you have TELNET access to your webspace you can use a Telnet Program to write, debug and test your scripts. Some servers ( like Windows NT) can execute certain scripts by embedding them right in your HTML documents.

Also Lucky for you... is that you may not have to learn to write a CGI program if all you want is a Form Responder or a simple counter. There are some free websites that do nothing but process forms for other peoples webpages. You simply sign up for their service ( which ads you to a mailing list that they can of course do what they want with).

So to build a basic form we need some new Tags - the Form Tag.

In the Form tag we declare first that this is a FORM. The ACTION variable is what calls the program to be executed. The METHOD in a FORM is usually POST. Name is what ever I name this particular Form Mailer. This particular form is on a Windows NT server using ASP as my programming language.

<FORM ACTION="http://www.meca.edu/Demomailer.asp" METHOD="POST" name="demomailer">

This is hidden from the viewer unless you view page source.

There are 5 Basic types of Fields that you can assign for people to enter their information. They are
  • Text - which gives a box to type in info
  • Radio - which gives a round circle you blacken
  • Checkbox - which gives a square checkbox
  • Select - which gives you a pull down list
  • Textarea - which allows for a larger message box


We'll start with Text fields and create three of them. First I type the Question or desired information and then I declare INPUT type="Text" ( to identify it as a Text field - Give the field a name which will be used to identify and the information in that particular text field. Then I give it a size which tells the text box how long to be. If they keep typing information past the size I set it lets them and you still get all the info.

Our three text fields will ask for the users name, email and phone number.

Name<INPUT type="Text" NAME="Name" SIZE="30">
E mail<INPUT type="Text" NAME="email" SIZE="30">
Phone<INPUT type="Text" NAME="phone" SIZE="30">


which diplays as
Name
E mail
Phone


The next field is a radio button. Notice I give these fields the same name but different values. By giving them the same name it will send back only the answer they check on the radio button. The Value of that radio button is what gets sent back to me in the form responder.

Is this your first attempt at building a form ? <input type="Radio" name="cc" value="Yes">Yes <input type="Radio" name="cc" value="No">No


which displays as
Is this your first attempt at building a form ? Yes No


The checkboxes work similar to the Radio buttons but allow you to check all of the boxes if you want instead of just one.Again what is sent back are the Values.

Please choose what type of computer(s) you own
<input type="checkbox" name="os" value="Mac">Mac
<input type="checkbox" name="os" value="Windows">Windows PC
<input type="checkbox" name="os" value="other">other


which displays as
Please choose what type of computer(s) you own
Mac
Windows PC
other


The Select field sends back whichever OPTION you choose in the pulldown menu. Whatever you type after the OPTION Tag is what displays to the viewer.

Please choose your age group
<SELECT NAME="Age">
<OPTION>0-20 years old
<OPTION>21-30 years old
<OPTION>31-40 years old
<OPTION>41-50 years old
<OPTION>51-60 years old
<OPTION>Older than the hills !!
</SELECT>


which displays as
Please choose your age group


You can also create a larger text area in case someone wants to send a message. This is done with the TEXTAREA Tag.The Rows and Columns tell this how large it should display

Leave a message:
<TEXTAREA NAME="message" ROWS="10" COLS="50" WRAP="HARD"></TEXTAREA>

which displays as
Leave a message



Then we create SUBMIT and RESET BUTTONS. The reset button allows someone to clear all information should they make a mistake. Submit is what tells the ACTION variable to execute the program .

<INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" NAME="submit_button" VALUE="Send Request"> <INPUT TYPE="RESET" NAME="reset_button" VALUE="Clear Form">



Don't forget to end the form </FORM>

To view a working form click here

So now you know how to build a form. You can now go to a Website like

http://www.response-o-matic.com

and sign up for their free service. Follow all the instructions and they will mail you their code which you will need to add to your Form.

By Modifying just a few lines of code on the FORM HERE you can bounce an e mail off their PERL CGI Form Responder Application.

Or go to one of these great resources and learn to do some programming.

http://www.worldwidemart.com
http://www.extropia.com
http://www.lies.com/begperl
http://cgi.resourceindex.com
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com
http://www.aspin.com/index/default.asp
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/

There are hundreds of places on the web where you can explore other programming languages. Have fun !!!
Roadmap of the Web | Tools and Process | Your First Page | Lists | Hyperlinks and Anchors
Images and Backgrounds | Tables | Frames | Animation | Image Maps | Meta Tags and Keywords
FTP | Forms | Audio and Multimedia | Website Promotion
Special Characters | Color Hex Codes | Glossary


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