Inserting forms with FrontPage
There is no "forms" menu and no "insert form" button. To write a form, choose "Insert--Form field" from the menu, and choose one type of field. This inserts not only the code for that field, but also the code <form> and </form> around it. It appears in the page with a border marked around it, showing the outline of the form. As long as you add text, paragraphs and new fields within that border, they all get added to the same form. If you move outside the border and then add another field, that field is defined as a new form.
You can add the fields the same way via the forms toolbar. It looks like this:
I am assuming you know about the various components of forms. If not, read the html lesson on forms first.
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Editing the fields
You will almost always need to edit the field after inserting it. Double-click within the field. You get a dialog window to fill in, asking for all the parameters for that field. It always includes Name for the field, and Initial or default Value; the other items depend on which field you clicked.
For the text fields you can specify size;
For the radio buttons and checkboxes you specify "checked" or "Not checked".
Buttons: For the "submit" button you can change the text written on the button, and choose the button type: "submit", "clear" or "normal" which defines the text as "Button" (unless you change it) and the type as "button". That's new and the version 3 browsers probably won't understand it. Its most obvious use is to insert a button which links to somewhere else. To do that, select the button by dragging the mouse from one side to the other (double-clicking on it won't work, since it opens the dialog window; single-clicking displays the frame around it, for resizing). then insert a link to where you want.
You can also add attributes via the "Extended..." button as usual.
Editing the form parameters
To edit the parameters of the whole form, double-click on any field and choose "Form..." from the dialog window. You get the following window:
Give the form a name, and add any hidden fields that the program processing the form requires. If you are not sending the form to a script on the server, open the drop-down menu to see the other options (eg connection to a database). Then click the "Settings" button. You get another dialog window:
"Action" will usually be the address of the script that handles the data from this form. "Method" should be POST unless you have a good reason to choose GET. Encoding-type is not necessary.
Using mailto: as the
action:
A mailto address (e.g. mailto:judyk@actcom.co.il)
specifying "text/plain" as the encoding type works
if the form is filled in with Netscape: the email address
specified gets the contents of the form as plain text, one
line per field in the orderin which the fields appear in the
form. It isn't as good as a proper script that formats the
output for you, but it's a workaround for people who aren't
allowed to put scripts or programs on the Web server.
However, MS Internet Explorer doesn't allow it (it will refuse to send the message), so it's not certain that FrontPage will like it either.
Now you can go back to the main Frontpage tutorial
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