What is a Form?

A form, as the name suggests, is something that is filled in to pass on information.

Web page forms can appear as part of any web page, and may consist of one or more fields to fill in or select options from. The results are often sent to the recipient as an e-mail document. A common type of form is a Guest Book, that instantly updates a web page showing your comments about the site you have visited. A form is a good way to get information about visitors to your site and it also makes it easy for them to contact you.

This Demonstration Form contains the typical types of fields you will find in a form.

Demonstration Form

Question 1
A B
These are check boxes. You can use these where the answer can be none, one or more of the options.
Question 2
A or B
These are radio buttons. You can use these where the answer can only be one of the options.
Your Name: This is a text box, often used for single words or short phrases.
How often do you wash your car?
This is a list box. You can scroll down the list to show the options available. These can be set to accept one or more selections.
What is you favourite colour?
This is a dropdown box. These can be set to accept one or more selections.
Describe your house:
This is a text area. You can use this type of field for miscellaneous input.
The SEND button will transmit the information, the Reset button will clear all of the fields, so you can start input again.

The results of this form could look a bit like this:

Logged form/email request:
=============================================
Date submitted: Mon Jul 17 10:27:50 GB 2005
=============================================
Details supplied in form by user:
=============================================
Form title: TUWD_TestForm
SendMailTo: Your_Name
ChkBox_A: Yes
ChkBox_B: No
Radio: A
Car_Wash: sometimes
Fav_Colour: red
House_text: Large crumbling Victorian heap
=============================================
END.

Form Scripts

To use a form on your web site you need to know if your ISP or host supports forms. They will have a special script installed on the server that handles the information contained in your form. It may be something like:

"http://www.hostname.com/cgi-bin/userform.cgi"

Alternatively you need to use FrontPage and have your site hosted on a server with FrontPage Extensions. To put a form on your web page select the Insert Form option in your HTML editor. You will need to refer to your ISP or host server to find the URL information for their form script.

You can then start adding the input fields to collect the information you want.

You can use a working form to send your comments or questions.