COS 125 DAY 23

Agenda Assignment 6 Corrected  5 A’s, 1 B, 1 C and 1 D  Problems with using CSS for layouts Assignment 7 is due today Assignment 7 Assignment 8 (last one) is posted  Due May 2 Left to do  3 rd and final Capstone progress report due April 25  1 Quiz on May 2 Chaps 7  17, Skip Chap M/C, 4 Short essays  Capstone projects on May 3 PM Course Evaluations Lecture/Discuss Forms  Examples 

Assignment 8

Learning Objectives What are forms?? Understand how to create an xHTML form Understand that most forms require a CGI script Understand how to submit a form by without a CGI script Be aware of form hosting services as a alternative way to process forms Use form fieldset elements Use form label elements Use tabindex and accesskey attributes to improves a form’s accessibility Understand how to disable form elements Understand how to display form contents in a way that cannot be changed

What is a form?? A form is a way to actively collect or display information to or from a web site viewer What can you do with forms?  Get feedback  Have a guestbook  Take a survey  See who’s visiting you  Sell stuff  And much more!

Form example

Form Example

What is a form? Two basic parts  Structure or shell Fields Labels Buttons Graphic User Interface components  GUI pronounced “gooey”  Scripts to process information collected CGI JavaScript ASP PHP

About CGI Scripts A script is a program written in a scripting language  Perl  VBscript  JavaScript  PHP Script runs on Web Server through a Interface  Requires Web Server administrator  Common Gateway Interface  ASP engine  JavaScript interpreter

What do Scripts do Processes the elements in forms  Collect data Name  Values pairs City=Fort%20Kent  Display data Name values  Perform actions Buttons Scripts  Do something with data collected  Format data for display  Add functionality to action elements

Creating A Form A form has 3 important parts  The form  The script that process the form  The form elements Text boxes Buttons Menus Basic Example Stuff

example m/html6ed/examples/for ms/fullform.html m/html6ed/examples/for ms/fullform.html More examples  html6ed/examples/forms/ html6ed/examples/forms/

Sending From Data via If you don’t want to use scripts you can have form data sent to you via … form elements… ML6ed_examples/forms/fullform_ .html

Form example DEFAULT ACTION

Testing Forms (without Script) Send to yourseslf Use a “display” script Action=" bin/display_results.pl" Action=“ examples/forms/showform.php”

Using a Form Hosting Service An option to creating scripts is using a form hosting service Steps  Find a hosting service  Connect to hosting service  Read the site info  Follow their instructions

Organizing The Form elements You can some group elements in your form After but before the first element you wish to group Name of Grouping After the elements you wished to group

Fieldsets, legends CSS and IE7 amples/forms/fieldsetlegend.html amples/forms/fieldsetlegend.html  fieldset.css fieldset.css amples/forms/plegend.html amples/forms/plegend.html  plegend.txt plegend.txt Works well in Opora

Fieldsets

In Opera

Creating text boxes Text boxes contain one line of free-form text Provide prompt to the users  “Type your comments in the area provided.”  Value is default text that will appear in text box  Size is the display area in number of characters  Maxlength is maximum number of characters the text box will accept Usually size < maxlenght

Creating Password box The difference between a text box and a password box is that the user will not see what they are typing. The characters are replaced with ** Give the user a prompt  Enter password:

Creating Labels for Form elements Some label name  Form element must have an ID  If you do not use “for” then label is associated with “nearest” form element  Use CSS to format labels

Creating Radio Buttons Radio Buttons allow you to select only one possible response from a list The following creates a list of 3 choices with the third choice already selected. Name must be the same for all radio buttons in the same group Choice A Choice B Choice C

Creating Checkboxes Checkboxes allow you to select as many responses as you like from a list The following creates a list of 3 choices with the third choice already selected. Name must be the same for all checkboxes in the same group Choice A Choice B Choice C

Creating Drop Down Menus

Prompt the user  “Select one of the list:” The following creates a drop down of N lines with 3 choices. Menu 3 is preselected. Menu 1 Menu 2 Menu 3

To Create Grouped menus Create a menu as described on previous slide Before the 1 st option tag in the 1 st group … After the last option you wish to group

Creating a Larger Text Area Gives user more room to write than text box Prompt the user  “Enter comments here:” Default Text  Can accepted up to 32,700 characters  Scroll bars appear when user types in more text than visible area

Allowing a user to Upload Files Requires a special CGI script What files are you sending?

Allowing a user to Upload Files

Hidden Fields The data is embedded in form and users doesn’t see and can’t modify Must give a value Data will be passed to script

Creating the Submit Button When depressed will send all name value pairs to script  The text given for value will appear on the button You can use many submit buttons if you name them You can add an image to a submit (or any other) button You can use CSS to style buttons

Resetting the Form Resetting will cause all entered data on the form to be reset You can add an image to a reset (or any other) button

Using an Image to Submit Data Create a GIF or JPEG image Position of cursor when mouse is clicked will be relayed to script as  Coord.x  Coord.y

Using an Image to Submit Data

Other form attributes Labels  Label text  Will place “Label text” before the form element with id=“aName”  Can be formatted with CSS Setting tab orders  tabindex=“N” in element opening tag Adding keyboard shortcuts  acesskey = “B” in element opening tag Disabling an element  Disabled=“disabled” Prevent a element from being modified  Readonly=“readonly”

Capstone Update Place your capstone project files in the capstone directory on the ftp server Call the start page of your website “main.htm” and place in the capstone directory Place your PowerPoint Presentation in this same directory You will be able get to capstone through the menu

Assignment #9 Create a Guest Book Students Create the input form  Collect the following info Name Age Status Favorite URL Comments Instructor wrote the ASP Scripts that create the guest book The script will give you errors if your form isn’t correct

Assignment #9 If you get this after submitting your form, than your form is either incorrect Or the user did not use the form correctly

Assignment #9 If you get this after submitting your form, than your form is working correctly

Assignment #9