Web form

A web form is a form on a web page that collects data that is sent to a web server for processing . They can be found, for example, in webmail applications, search engine input fields, in social networks or on login pages. The data are sent using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol via HTTP-GET , HTTP-POST or the XMLHttpRequest ( Ajax ).

Possible selection fields

The following input fields are provided in the HTML 4 standard:

• single line text entry field (for free text)
• Password field (entries are masked on the screen)
• multi-line text input field ( text area )
• Selection lists ( drop-down list )
• Radio buttons (selection of one option from several)
• Checkboxes (selection of several options)
• File upload fields
• hidden form fields (e.g. for session IDs )
• Click buttons , this also includes the confirmation button ( submit ) or a button to reset the entries

HTML5 allows other types of input fields, which often differ from the single-line input field only in terms of their semantics :

• Phone numbers
• Email address
• Range selection (English: range slider )
• Date picker
• Comboboxes

Advanced widgets

By using client-side technologies such as JavaScript, many web frameworks offer extended input options . These include widgets such as sliders, calendar boxes, combo boxes, color selectors or drag-and-drop fields.

Some typical web frameworks for this purpose are:

• FormEngine - specialized form framework for easy execution on an application server
• Dojo Toolkit - JavaScript framework for developing JavaScript / Ajax based applications
• jQuery UI - JavaScript framework for functional expansion of the user interface based on jQuery
• Apache Wicket - web framework as the basis for developing web applications on a Java application server
• JavaServer Faces - Web framework as the basis for developing web applications on a Java application server
• Ext JS - JavaScript or Ajax framework for interactive web applications

use

In addition to search engines and web mailers, there are also online shops that offer forms for correcting address and account data. Even web forms for ordering are newsletters , for personalization or uploading of files used. Forms are used to communicate without specifying an e-mail address . For example , spam can be largely excluded by captchas . In principle, every page that shows a radio, checkbox or button element is a web form.

example

Sample output of a simple web form.

The following HTML source text integrates a Wikipedia search into the corresponding part of the website .

<form action="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Suche">
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Suchen</legend>
    <input type="text"   name="search" value="" />
    <input type="submit" name="go" value="Artikel"/>
    <input type="submit" name="fulltext" value="Volltext" />
  </fieldset>
</form>

Web links

• Web forms in the Selfhtml Wiki
• Better forms thanks to HTML5 and CSS3 . In: iX