OBJECTIVE:
Use a form to obtain input from a visitor to your website. We will need 1 tag, 7 elements, and 9 attributes. Please make reference to the form and code linked at the top of this page.

• Tag: Form
  The Form needs to be opened and close so that it includes all the elements and attributes. It has 2 attributes - Action and Method.
  • Action - Once the form is filled and submitted, something has to process it for the human to understand. If we merely send the submission by email, we need "Action=mailto:webmaster@aol.com".
    
  • Method - If we send more than a couple of words, the internet can handle the content better with Method="Post".

• Element: Text
  <Input type=text name=memname size=30 maxlength=30>
  If we want the visitor to fill in a blank of text, we use "type=text", specifying the size of the blank and the maximun number of characters it will accept.

• Element: Check Boxes
  <Input type=checkbox name=goal1 value="Better Speaker">
  If we want the visitor to pick one or more choices, we use "type=checkbox", specifying the value for each of the choices.

• Element: Radio Buttons
  <Input type=radio name=goal2 value="Better Speaker">
  If we want the visitor to pick one and only one choice from several choices, we use "type=radio", specifying the value for each of the choices.

• Element: Select
  <Select name=goal3 size=1>
  <option> Better Speaker</select>
  If we want the visitor to pick a choice from a pull down menu of choices, we use "Select", specifying the number of choices the visitor can see at the same time.

• Element: Text Area
  <textarea name=comment cols=30 rows=2></textarea>
  If we want the visitor to enter information in a larger blank, we use "Textarea", specifying the number of characters across (rows) and the number of rows.

• Element: Submit and Reset
  <Input type=submit name=submit value="Send">
  <Input type=reset name=reset value="Never Mind">
  At the end of the form we want to give the visitor a button to click when he is ready to send the information; and a button to reset the form is he wishes to clear the form and restart. Whatever we write as "Value" will be displayed on the respective button.

That is it!

• The importance of the NAME and VALUE is that these are the only 2 things you get from a form. The NAME tells you which prompt he was filling; the VALUE tells you what he filled.
• We could pretty up the form for readability sake by placing it inside a 2 column table. The first column has the prompt; the second has the fill in the blank. See the sample form and its code.
• There are a few more elements and attributes, but mostly this is more than enough.
• The only limit to the number of elements on a form is the time the visitor is willing to sit through the whole process.
• Instead of an email we could have an executable script to process and format the visitors data, or even add it to an exisiting database.
• As you can see, a website can be interactive and thus improve every day!