About Forms
You've probably filled out lots of forms online. Maybe you've filled out an online survey or purchased items from Amazon or eBay. Even just signing into your Hotmail account with your username and password is filling out a form. So you may already know that forms are a means of collecting various types of information supplied by visitors to a web site. For instance, you can use forms in your site to create a questionnaire or a guest book or to build database-driven pages. You may not know, however, that a form consists of two parts: what your visitor sees in the browser, and the back-end setup that runs on your web server and that handles the form content when the visitor submits it.
Forms are a means of collecting various types of information supplied by visitors to a web site. Dreamweaver makes building the front-end aspects of a formwhat site visitors see in their browserseasy. As you'll see, you can quickly insert various form objects, such as text fields, pull-down menus, and check boxes. Dreamweaver also lets you easily validate the information that a user inserts in your form, to make sure that the form is completed properly. Forms provide a way for you to collect information about your web site visitors. For instance, you can use forms to create a guest book, a simple poll, or a survey like this one. To try this form in action, go to [tentonbooks.com]
But the back-end aspect of formswhich is required if the form is to workcan get a little hairy, especially if you're brand new to forms and web design. When your form has been filled out and the user clicks Submit, the content entered in the form is sent to a script that's installed on your web server, where it's then processed. Some back-end processing is handled by server-side technologies such as PHP, Macromedia ColdFusion, or Microsoft ASP.net, while others rely on simpler CGI (common gateway interface) scripts. The type of back-end programming and data processing that occurs depends on the type of form and site you're working with. In some cases, simple scripts compile the form data and send the information to an e-mail address. Other, more complex scripts collect the information in a database or build a web page for the visitor based on the information that the visitor provides. Now if you're starting to feel a little woozy, don't worry. Many Internet service providers these days offer free CGI scripts and a whole bunch of other goodies for their clients. Or if you're working within a company, your system administrator should be able to help you set up whatever you need. In either case, if you want to use forms on your site, you'll be given a URL to the server-side application. All you do in Dreamweaver is set a hyperlink from your form to the application. Easy as pie.
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