Processing Website Forms

Most ISPs (provided that you have purchased the required package) will provide access to form handling scripts, if not or they don’t satisfy your requirements then there are many scripts available on the Internet, often free for very basic ones, or you can write them yourself.

The site wizard offers a free PHP/Perl form generator and even a course on writing your own php form.

If  your ISP or web host is unable to provide form processing, then a common alternative is to use one of many free form processing services .These are simply form mail scripts that reside on another server but are offered for use to the general public.

These services tend to include some form of advertising either on the form itself or on the thank you page. The script processes the form data and can forward the  data on as an email, or save it in a database.

Third party form hosts:

•  http://www.formbuddy.com/ -free with advertising- can upgrade to paid version.
• http://www.formhosts.com/ - commercial service but has huge selection of forms (order forms. timesheet etc) that can be used as an online ordering system.

Form Thank You Page

When the visitor submits the form controls is passed to a form processing script. After the script has done the data extraction the script then passes the user back to the website. It is normal (and very desirable) to pass the visitor onto a thank you page.

The thank you page besides being used to thank the visitor for filling out the form (or order) can be used to recommend additional/complimentary products, supply download details etc. One of my favourite uses is to collect data in the form of online polls.

Using FrontPage to Create Forms

FrontPage can be used to create and layout forms but care should be taken to ensure that the forms don’t rely on FrontPage extensions being available unless of course you intend it that way.

When creating forms using the forms Wizard then you should at some stage be prompted to enter the form handler, If you don’t intend to use the FrontPage extensions then choose external for the form handler.

If the HTML generated by FrontPage has any references to a WebBot then it requires FrontPage server extensions to work correctly. If the server doesn’t support FrontPage server extensions it won’t process the WebBots and so the functionality they were meant to provide will be lost but otherwise the page should display.

 It is best however to remove them if they are not to be used. Although it may require manual editing it is far simpler to use FrontPage for the initial layout than to code the entire form manually.

• Creating Website Forms
• Website forms Introduction