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FrontPage makes
form creation simple by providing form processing capabilities
within the server side extensions installed on a Front Page
enabled account. What does that mean? Without
Front Page, you would need a special script to process the
data received by the form. Front Page also provides
tools to make creation of the form itself easier. So how
do you create the form? Here we go....
Front Page provides pretty good instructions in their help
section on creating and configuring a form, so you might want
to head there. But we'll also provide the basics here.
Plan
Ahead
Save yourself headaches
on the backside and do a little planning before you start to
create your form. Nothing is worse then getting halfway
through and realizing you've forgotten something important or
that the layout just isn't working.
Decide the purpose of your form and what fields you will
need. (Keep in mind that any type of form which asks for
sensitive information like Social Security Number or Credit
Card Number should be Secure through SSL). Make a list
of the fields you will need and think about what type of
fields each item may be.
Field types:
One-line text box - Used to collect a small amount of text,
such as a name, street address or phone number.
Radio buttons - Used when you want the site visitor to select
only one option from a group such as a yes or no question, or
shipping options.
Scrolling text box - Used to collect one or more lines of
text, such as a comment. This field scrolls to accommodate
varying amounts of text.
Drop-down menu - Used to present the site visitor with a list
of choices. You can configure a drop-down menu to allow
one or multiple selections. This is great for limiting
the answers a visitor can provide. Example - You want a
visitor to select their favorite season. Instead of
putting in a text box where someone could misspell or put in
something strange, you provide a dropdown with options Summer,
Spring, Fall, Winter.
Check box - Used for optional items. The site visitor can
select or clear the check box. They can also select multiple
items. Example - asking visitor about their interests or
hobbies. They can check all that apply.
Push button - Used to let site visitors submit the form after
filling it out, clear fields by resetting the form, or run
your own custom scripts.
Onward
and Upward
Once you know what
fields you need and what type they are you can go ahead and
start building the form. Front Page offers some special
form types which can be included in your pages such as
Discussion Group forms and Guestbook forms. More details
about those can be found in the Front Page Help section.
We're just going to cover the basic Information Gathering to
Email form here since that's the one most commonly used.
There are two methods for creating your form. One is to
go to File, then New, then Page. A Window will appear
listing various page types. One option is the Form
Wizard. The Form Wizard asks you several questions and
then creates a blank page containing your form when you've
finished. If you're new to site design or looking for a
quick and easy option the Form Wizard is probably a good
choice.
The second option is to insert a form into a new or already
developed page. This method requires you to build the
form piece by piece. It also allows you to create
exactly what you need. To create a form this way you go
to Insert, then to Form, then to Form again. This
creates a dashed line rectangle with two buttons inside
(Submit and Reset). This is the outline of your form and
all of your form components need to be placed within the
dashed outline. Save yourself some swearing now and as
soon as Front Page creates the dashed outline hit your enter
key once or twice to create some space within the box.
Trying to get your cursor back in front of that Submit key
later can be maddening.
Once you've created the dashed outline form you need to add
fields into it. If you go back to Insert and then Form
you will notice in the side menu that pops out there are
options for various form fields. Select the field type
you would like to insert and click on it. Voila, it
appears inside your form wherever your cursor was.
Another tip here...it's best to type in the field labels
before you actually insert the field, it's that cursor thing
again. For instance, if your first field is name, type
Name: then go to Insert>Form>One-line Textbox and insert
the textbox where the visitor will type their name.
Continue adding fields until the form looks the way you want
and includes all the fields you need.
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