About creating forms

A form on a web site is similar to a paper form. You can use it to gather information from site visitors, such as collecting their order, shipping, and billing information. Typically, site visitors type their information in form fields  (form field: A data-entry field on a page. A site visitor supplies information in a field either by typing text or by selecting a field.)and indicate their preferences by clicking option buttons, check boxes, and drop-down boxes. The can also enter comments in text boxes.

Microsoft FrontPage enables you to create a form based on the type of information you want to gather from site visitors by either starting with a blank form that you can build on (by adding fields) or by using the Form Page wizard. You can specify how to collect the data the site visitors entered — the form results — and decide how you want to display the results to the site visitor in the form of a confirmation page.

Note   For forms to function on a web site, you must publish your web site to a web server running the  Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions (FrontPage Server Extensions: A set of programs and scripts that support authoring in FrontPage and extend the functionality of a Web server. ) or SharePoint Team Services from Microsoft. Your web administrator or Internet service provider (ISP: A business that provides access to the Internet for such things as electronic mail, chat rooms, or use of the World Wide Web. Some ISPs are multinational, offering access in many locations, while others are limited to a specific region.) (ISP) can tell you if this software is installed on your Web server (Web server: A computer that hosts Web pages and responds to requests from browsers. Also known as an HTTP server, a Web server stores files whose URLs begin with http://.).

Types of commonly used forms

• Contact information form
• Requests form
• Order form with shipping and billing information
• Feedback form
• Guest book
• Search query form allowing visitors to search your web site
• Log on form that prompts the the site visitors for their user name and password 

Note   FrontPage includes templates to create a guestbook, registration, or feedback form. You can also use wizards ,such as the Database Interface Wizard, to create a form that saves data to a database.

There are several steps to creating an online form with Microsoft FrontPage. After you have completed all of them, you have the option to go back and change certain properties. For example, if your list of products has expanded, you can add those products to the options that a site visitor chooses from in a drop-down box. Or, you may decide that instead of having form results sent to you in an e-mail, you want FrontPage to create a database to store the information.

1. Adding fields to the form   Fields can be text boxes, option buttons, push buttons, and so forth, depending on the kind of information you want the get from the site visitor. After placing fields on your form, you can lay them out on the page as you would text, using line breaks, tables, cascading style sheets (CSS: A cascading style sheet is a document containing style information that can be referenced by multiple web pages. Styles define appearance and formatting of content on web pages and allow authors more control over how content is displayed in browsers.), and positioning (positioning: Positioning is another way to place elements, such as text and graphics, on a page. Positioning lets the page author control the exact location and layer order of a page element.).  There are many different kinds of fields, and you can even customize them to suit your needs.  

   The various form fields

   • Textbox
     Use text boxes to collect a small amount of text, such as a name or a number.
   • 
     Enter your e-mail address:
   • Option buttons
     Use option buttons (also called radio buttons) when you want the site visitor to select only one option from a group.
     
     A B C
   • Text area
     Use text areas to collect one or more lines of text, such as a comment. This field scrolls to accommodate varying amounts of text.
     
     Sign my guest book:
     
   • Drop-down box
     Use a drop-down box to present the site visitor with a list of choices. This field is similar to using a group of option buttons, but takes less space on your form. You can configure a drop-down box to allow one or multiple selections.
     
     Select a product: Product 1 Product 2 Product 3
   • Checkbox
     Use check boxes for optional items. The site visitor can select or clear the check box. They can also select multiple items.
     
     Yes, I would like to receive updates
   • Push button
     Use push buttons to let site visitors submit the form after filling it out, clear fields by resetting the form, or run your custom scripts.
   • You can also add a picture to a form to use in place of a submit button. After filling out the form, the site visitor clicks the picture to submit the form, and then the data from the form, including the name of the picture field, is sent to the form handler (form handler: A program on a server that is executed when a site visitor submits a form. A form in FrontPage is associated with a form handler.).
   • Advanced button
   • By inserting the Advanced button into your form, you can write a script that will make your form do what you need. The Advanced button is highly customizable — you can use fancy fonts, colors, or even tables on the button.
   • Group box
   • Add a group box to your form when you want to separate a group of related controls or text from the rest of the information on the page or in the current form.
   •  
     Group box label here

      

     Enter information you want to separate here.

   •  
   • File upload
   • You can give your site visitors the opportunity to send a file to your web site. When you insert the File Upload form field, site visitors click on the Browse button, locate their file, and then click Submit.
   • Password field
   • When you want a site visitor to enter a password to visit your web site, add a password field to your registration form. A password field is really just a one-line text box. When a site visitor types in this field, most Web browsers will display the password as asterisks, to protect confidentiality.
   • Note Only the UNIX  (UNIX: A multi-user, multitasking operating system that exists in various forms and implementations, typically used on proprietary computer workstations. Many Web servers run on UNIX systems.)operating system allows password validation and registration through a Web browser.
   • Password
2. Setting up functionality for each field   After you have decided what types of fields to add to your form, you can define what you want them to do and how you want them to look. You can type directly on the firm to include field labels and instructions. You can also set the properties for each field. For example, you can specify the length of a text box, decide whether an option is selected by default, and define the choices in a drop-down box.
3. Setting data entry rules   Also called "validation," data entry rules ensure that a site visitor fills out the form correctly. For example, you can set up an order form for your products, but unless the name, address, and payment information are correctly entered, your customer won't be able to complete and submit the order.

   You can also specify a format for the information you want to collect. For example, to collect a credit card number, you can set up a text box that only accepts numbers and hyphens, and  disallows other characters. You can also require a fixed number of characters so that a site visitor does not omit a number by mistake.

4. Setting up how you want to collect that information   After a site visitor submits the form, you must collect the data that was entered — the form results — so you can view them, display them to the visitor, or work with them as needed. FrontPage provides several form handlers (form handler: A program on a server that is executed when a site visitor submits a form. A form in FrontPage is associated with a form handler.), which take the form results and perform various actions. For example, when a site visitor submits a form, FrontPage can save the contact information to a customer database. Or, you can have the form results sent to you in an email or saved as a text or HTML file.  
5. Adding a confirmation page   FrontPage automatically displays a confirmation page to your site visitor (unless you are using a custom script). You can also create your own confirmation page and decide which fields to show your site visitor. If you do not create and assign a confirmation page of your own, FrontPage will use the default confirmation page, which displays a list of all the field names from the form and their values.
6. Creating keyboard shortcuts   A keyboard shortcut enables a site visitor to select a field in a form by using the keyboard rather than by clicking the field. The shortcut appears as an underlined letter in the field label— the site visitor selects the field by pressing ALT plus the underlined letter.
7. Specifying the tab order for the form   Site visitors can navigate through a form — move from field to field — by pressing the TAB key. By default, the order of fields on the page (from top to bottom) is the order in which a visitor can tab through the form. You can, however, specify a different tab order.