Understanding How Forms Work in FrontPage 2003

Before you build a form, understanding the basics of how forms work can help. If this stuff seems a little tricky, don't worry. FrontPage 2003 takes care of the hard part. All you need to do is decide how you want to use forms in your Web site.

Like paper forms, interactive forms collect different types of information. Web site visitors fill in fields, either by typing information or selecting an item from a list. After visitors complete the form, they click a button to submit the information.

The information submitted from forms is organized into a list of field names (also known as variable names) and field values. The field name is a unique identifying descriptor assigned to each field in your form. The field name is invisible to your visitors; it exists inside the form's HTML and is visible only to the person (or computer) receiving the information submitted from the form. The field value is the information that the visitor submits. Depending on the type of field, the value is either the stuff the visitor types or an item that the visitor chooses from a list you define.

What happens to that information after a visitor submits the completed form depends on the type of form handler assigned to the form. A form handler is a program that resides on the host Web server. This program receives the form data and then does something with it. Depending on the type of form handler, the program may, for example, save the data (also known as the form results) in a text file, format the results as a Web page, or even send the information back to the site administrator in an e-mail message.

FrontPage offers several different methods for form creation, including a prefab form page template.

FrontPage contains the following templates for forms that often show up in Web sites:

• Feedback Form: This template creates a simple form that visitors use to send comments, questions, or suggestions.

• Guest Book: This template also collects comments, but it saves the submissions in a public Web page that other visitors can read.

• User Registration: The User Registration template creates a registration page that enables you to track or restrict who visits the Web site. With a registration system in place, visitors can choose their own access user names and passwords, and you decide what level of access these visitors have to your site. FrontPage registration systems have fairly specific server requirements; for details, refer to the FrontPage Help system by choosing Help --> Microsoft FrontPage Help.

To create a form using a template, follow these steps:

1. Choose File --> New.

The New task pane appears.

2. In the New Page section of the task pane, click the More Page Templates link.

The Page Templates dialog box appears.

3. In the dialog box's list of templates, double-click the template you want to use.

The dialog box closes, and a new page based on the template you chose appears in Design view.

Inside pages created by using form templates, the form consists of all the stuff inside the space surrounded by dotted lines, also known as the form area. The colorful comments at the top of the page give you hints about how to customize the form. The rest of what appears on-screen is a regular old Web page. Treat the entire page (including text inside the form area) just as you would any Web page: Format the text, insert graphics — whatever you want. These templates are pretty basic, so you'll most likely want to dress them up.