Coding Forms

Text Entry Fields allow the User to enter text. For instance, if you we're doing a survey, you could give the user the option of entering his or her name. This would require a text entry field. The following example shows the coding of a text entry field within the Form. It also has a hidden field and a password field.

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Application: Add all three types of text entry fields. In the text and password fields change the size to 35 and the maxlength to 45. In the hidden field place your own email address inthe value subsection.
Example: Form with 'text', 'hidden' and 'password' Fields.

SIZE tells the browser how large to make the field.

INPUT is the main tag that fits inside the form tag. It lets the browser know that a form of input is about to be defined. The most common sub-sections to the 'input' tag are type, name and value.

HIDDEN tells the browser the field is not to be displayed, and the user cannot enter any data into the field. This is used for fields that must be provided to the script or program to successfully process the data entered in the form. In this case the 'hidden' field is passing an email address to tell the script where to send the results of the form.

NAME is the name of the INPUT tag. This name is vital to the script or program that is processing the information. If using a script or program that is already written, you may be told what names to use.

PASSWORD tells the browser to echo each entry in the field with the Asterisk (i.e*******). While this keeps the password from being visible to the casual observer, it is not necessarliy secure. The form would have to go through an encryption process before transmission to provide security.

TYPE identifies the type of input field to display (text, hidden, password, radio,checkbox, reset, submit). In this tag we are telling the browser that this input is a text field.

MAXLENGTH tells the browser how many characters maximum is allow to be entered in the field.. The text entry field may have a 'size' of 20, and a 'maxlength' of 40. That means the form field accepts more data than can be displayed in the field. The field will simply scroll as the user types until the 'maxlength' value is reached.

VALUE is the value you want this field to have. In this tag the value is the email address where the information is to be sent once processed. In this case the name 'recipient' is vital because the script being passed the information has been programmed to find the field named recipient and email the results of the form to the email address associated with its 'value'.