Basic FORM Tags

This is just a quick introduction to what a form looks like and what can be done with it. There is much better documentation on this in the NCSA Fill-out Forms pages.

Basic Form Example

A basic form layout might look like this (in HTML):

Vote for your favorite Heisman Candidate:
<BR><FORM ACTION="noCGI" METHOD=POST>
Candidate's Name: <INPUT NAME="vote_for">
<BR>Your Name: <INPUT NAME="voter_name">
<BR>Your E-mail: <INPUT NAME="voter_email">
<BR>To submit the query, press: 
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit Vote">.
</FORM>

This is rendered:

Vote for your favorite Heisman Candidate:

You simply fill in the blanks, and press 'submit' (note that this form doesn't do anything because no CGI application was specified in the FORM tag.)

FORMS is supported by many, but not all browsers. If you see nothing above here that looks like a form, then check out this list of forms-capable clients to see if yours is on the list.

What the tags mean

The first line marks that as the beginning of a section of the document that will contain form data elements (text fields, buttons, etc.).

The ACTION attribute specifies the URL to which the form results will be sent: this should be a CGI application. Since no URL is specified, an error will occur if you try to submit this form.

The METHOD attribute specifies the HTTP method to be used to submit the form information to the server. There are two options:

GET (the default) - the form contents are appended to the url (after a question mark). This method severely limits how much information may be sent (MacHTTP limits it to 2K).
POST - the form contents are sent to the server in the body of the message. This is the recommended usage, and the only one I'll be covering.

For an explanation of the INPUT and other possible tags, look at the NCSA Fill-out Forms documentation.

[Back to Forms Page]

Jon Wiederspan
Last Edited: October 26, 1994