FORM TUTORIAL, by T. O' Donnell.

[For an example of these special HTML
tags in action, see my OMNI script.]

A web page form is HTML code designed to send unique surfer 
input from the browser to a cgi script. The data is sent in
the format NAME, VALUE, where NAME is equal to the item name and
VALUE is equal to its value.

This is accomplished by putting special tags in the code of
the web page.

Here are the tags:

<FORM ACTION="http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/tigertom.cgi" METHOD="post">

This calls the cgi-script.

[ At the end of your form page, you put this tag: </FORM>.
This tells the browser that all the tags between these two, if they are 
form data tags, are to be sent to the cgi-script.]

    <INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="email" VALUE="barry@yourdomain.com">

This tag allows you to put information in the page which is HIDDEN from
the surfer, but which may be vital to the operation of the script, like
an email address to send the data to.

    <INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="your_comment" VALUE="" SIZE="50" MAXLENGTH="60">

This displays a text input box in the browser, defines its size, and the
maximum length of the text string that will be allowed to be entered. 

[Hackers like to try to overload scripts with lots of text, and 
cause a server to crash, as this can give them write access to it.] 

   <INPUT TYPE=RADIO NAME="download" VALUE="">
   <INPUT TYPE=RADIO NAME="download" VALUE="test.zip">
   <INPUT TYPE=RADIO NAME="download" VALUE="test.exe">

These are radio buttons.  You can select only one at a time, because
here they all have the same NAME. That's the trick if you want to have
mutually-exclusive options in your form.


   <INPUT TYPE=CHECKBOX NAME="fiddle" VALUE="play_it">
   <INPUT TYPE=CHECKBOX NAME="violin" VALUE="string_it" CHECKED>

These are tick-boxes.  A surfer can tick or un-tick a box. In this
example, one box is checked for him, the other is unchecked. 

  
   <SELECT NAME="Card_type">
   <OPTION VALUE="AMERICANEXPRESS">American Express
   <OPTION VALUE="VISA">Visa
   <OPTION VALUE="MASTERCARD">MasterCard
   </SELECT>

This is a drop-down menu.


  <INPUT TYPE=PASSWORD NAME="password" VALUE="" SIZE=20 MAXLENGTH=15>

This is a password box. The text entered cannot be read in the browser.


   <INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT NAME="SUBMIT" VALUE="CLICK HERE TO SEND ORDER">
   <INPUT TYPE=RESET NAME="RESET" VALUE="Clear Form">

These are submit and reset buttons. 

As specified above, you finish your form with  this tag: </FORM>
and the form is ready.  

See my CGI tutorial for tips on how to
set up a CGI script to accept form data.