Free HTML Forms Class: Lesson 2 - Mailto Forms and Multiple Page Forms

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Free HTML Forms Class Lesson 2 - Mailto Forms and Multiple Page Forms From Jennifer Kyrnin, your Guide to Web Design / HTML Now we enter the more difficult part of the course - making your forms work. Unfortunately, HTML doesn't really have any built-in tools or functions to make forms work, for that you have to use programming. But there is a way to use the mailto option, generally found in link tags, to send mail from a Web form. This tutorial is available online as well as by email. If you want to get ahead or just need more time with a particular lesson feel free to follow the HTML Forms Tutorial on the website. Building a Mailto Form Mailto Forms It can be tempting to just slap a mailto:email address entry into your form action and think you're done. But there's more to mailto forms than that. This article takes you through the important parts of the mailto form. The Method Attribute of the FORM Tag The method attribute is an important attribute for mailto forms. You need to set it to GET to work most effectively. Sometimes Mailto Forms Don't Work Mailto forms are easy to put up, but because they rely on an interaction between the web server, web browser, and an email client, there is a lot that can go wrong. In Day 3, we'll discuss various alternatives to mailto that you should use if you are writing a mission critical form. But this article will help you troubleshoot your mailto forms and might get them working quickly. Multiple Page Forms One of the challenges of writing web forms is that you can't create multi-page forms easily. The problem is that every time you load a new web page, the browser clears all the data and starts over. That includes any information that was filled out in a form. To solve this, developers have to use tricks like cookies and hidden input tags to hold onto the form data. Learn how to create a complex, multiple-page form in this article. Homework Post Your Form URL to the Forum Put up a form that uses mailto as the action. Be sure to test your form before and after you upload it to your Web site. If you want feedback on your form, post your URL to the HTML forum, in the HTML class folder. Be sure to indicate that you have a question in your subject. This email is written by: Jennifer Kyrnin Web Design / HTML Guide Email Me | My Blog | My Forum   Missing a lesson? Click here. About U. is our collection of free online courses designed to help you learn a new skill, solve a problem, get something done, or just learn more about your world. Sign up now, and we will email you lessons on a daily or weekly basis. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the About.com 'Free HTML Forms Class' email. If you wish to unsubscribe, please click here. About respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy Contact Information: 249 West 17th Street New York, NY, 10011 © 2010 About.com   Advertisement