AOLpress Help

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Forms

See the tutorial lesson on forms for a hands-on example.

Forms provide a way for readers of your Web page to send you information. For example, one of the forms in an electronic mail order company would allow the customer to specify their name, address, credit card number, and telephone number. This section explains how you create forms.

Quick Start

Here is a quick summary of commands you can use to create forms:

Create a form within a page		Format Form
Radio button	Radio	Check box	Check
Text field	Text	Text area field	TArea
Selection List	Slist	Image field	Image
Reset	Reset	Submit	Submit

Creating Input Forms

Create a form that will run the program:

1. Choose the Format Form menu item to see the Form window. Type the URL of your CGI program or script in the Form Handler Location field. The next section talks about the built-in form handlers you can use.
2. In the Method area, select the HTTP method that will be used to submit the form to the server. The choices are GET and POST. Most servers (all AOLservers) support both GET and POST; older servers may only support GET. You should use POST if you can, because it allows larger transmissions.
   • GET causes the filled-out form contents to be appended to the URL as if they were a normal query.
   • POST causes the filled-out form contents to be sent to the server in the hidden header information rather than as part of the URL.
3. If you are using frames, select the Target Frame you want to display the results when the form is submitted.
4. Click OK to create the form.
5. Two dotted lines appear surrounding the form. Click the cursor inside the form on the page (between the dotted lines) to make the Form Palette visible. Click the cursor outside the form, to hide the Form Palette.
6. Display or hide the dotted boundary of the form with Format Hide Borders/Show Borders. This also displays/hides dashed borders around lists and tables with no borders.
7. Click Format Exit Form Format when the form is at the bottom of the page and there is nothing beneath the form to click into, and you want to exit the form.
8. Use the option Format Remove Form Format to remove the form. You must remove all form elements first, but the software reminds you to do this.

Again, a page can contain more than one form, but forms cannot be nested within each other.

Choosing a Form Handler

When you submit a form on the Web, a program on the server runs to send email, get information from a database, or whatever the particular form does. Normally, you would have to write programs to do these things in C, Perl, or Tcl.

• If you are a PrimeHost customer, see the PrimeHost Getting Started Guide and the PrimeHost FAQ for information about the form handlers provided with your PrimeHost account.
  
• If you are an AOL member, see the AOL Web Administrator's page for information about the form handlers provided with your AOL membership.
  
• If you have the Commercial or Dedicated level of PrimeHost hosting service (or your own AOLserver), there are a number of built-in programs for searching and adding information to database tables. See the AOLserver documentation for more information.
  
• If you have the Commercial or Dedicated level of PrimeHost hosting service (or your own server), you can write your own form handling programs. These programs can use the AOLserver API or the CGI (Common Gateway Interface) For more information, see the AOLserver documentation.For resources and examples, see the PrimeHost Developers' Corner at http://www.primehost.com/.