Forms allow you to accept information from those who visit your site in a format that you choose. You can give forms the appearance of a questionnaire, an application, or survey. For a more detailed and complete description of how the forms program on KORRnet works, please see the author's web site:

FormMail
http://www.worldwidemart. com/scripts/formmail.shtml

The FormMail program is a product of:

Matt's Script Archive
http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/

Here's an Example Form that I created based on a survey that the Loudon County Health Improvement Council distributed (you can see the results of their survey by visiting their website):

Example Form

Unfortunately, Composer does not make forms. Some of the other programs that I mentioned on the page about editors do make forms (I used Site Aid and my word processor to edit the forms on these pages . . . I got ideas for the elements of the Example Form by looking at source code for pages I liked). However, making forms is not too difficult. You can use any word processor to make forms. Just be sure to save the file as an ASCII DOS Text file. 

I will give an example of each element of a form here and the code you must include on the page containing the form so that it will work on KORRnet. You can copy and paste code directly from this page to make your forms, and you can make a copy of the Example Form linked above, then modify it to suit your needs. 

Note: this form, as you see it illustrated here, will only work if your site is on KORRnet.

To get started, open a new file in your word processor, drag your mouse over the following code to copy and paste it into your word processor:

---

text="#000066"
bgcolor="#FFFFFF" 
link="#CC0000" 
vlink="#CC0000" 
alink="#FF9900">

<form action="/cgi-bin/public/formmail/FormMail.pl" method="POST">

<br>

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="recipient" 
VALUE="your email address goes here">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="subject"
VALUE="The subject of your form goes here">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="required" 
VALUE="email,phone,organization">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="env_report" 
VALUE="REMOTE_HOST, HTTP_USER_AGENT">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="print_config" 
VALUE="organization,subject">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="title" 
VALUE="Survey Form Results">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="return_link_url" 
VALUE="http://www.korrnet.org/yoursite">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="return_link_title" 
VALUE="Back to  Our Home Page">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="bgcolor"
VALUE="#FFFFFF">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="link_color"
VALUE="#CC0000">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="vlink_color"
VALUE="#CC0000">

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="alink_color"
VALUE="#FF9900">

</form>
</body>
</html>

---

Save the code you just copied as an ASCII DOS Text file. For example, in WordPerfect click File and select Save. Use the pop up menu where it says "File Type" to select ASCII DOS Text.
 

After you save the file, you will probably have to rename it so that it will be an HTML file. Your word processor will most likely name your file with a txt extension. Rename it with the extension htm or html. For example, my file was named "test.txt", and I renamed it "test.html" Windows will warn you that changing the file name may make it unreadable, but disregard the warning.
 

A Look at the Code

I learned what the code you just copied does by testing the lines to see what they do. The code will work as is, once you fill in some of the necessary details; however, you can modify it to suit your needs. Also, after you get all the form elements you want inserted into your  page, you can return to the Netscape Composer to edit the layout of your page. Here is what I've learned so far. 

Note: you can click each of the numbers below to go to the line being discussed.

1 - Fill in a Title for Your Page

The third line is where you need to put a title for your form page. Just insert your title between the title tags. 

Tags, since I don't think I've mentioned them, are codes that tell your browser about the web page you are viewing. They are instructions. Composer creates tags for you while you are editing a page. Tags are contained in brackets that look like this: <>. Generally, tags come in pairs, a beginning tag and an ending tag. For example, to print in bold text I surround the text I want in bold type with bold tags:

<b>This text will be bold in a browser.</b>

See (look in the source code at this line):

This text will be bold in a browser.

Composer inserts bold tags automatically for you.

Please see the HTML guides page for more information about tags.

2 - Choose Some Colors

You can fill in some colors for your form page here. The colors listed are the ones that I use for this site, namely navy blue text and red links. My suggestion is that you wait until you are ready to open your form in Composer to choose your colors.

<body 

text="#000066"
bgcolor="#FFFFFF" 
link="#CC0000" 
vlink="#CC0000" 
alink="#FF9900">

Composer will fill these in automatically when you choose colors from the Format menu (in composer, click Format and select Page Colors and Properties to see what I mean). For your general information, the characters in the quotes following the pound sign, are references to colors in hexadecimal format. Here is what each line specifies:

text= the text color on your page 
bgcolor= the background color of your page 
link= the color of the links on your page 
vlink= the color of visited links 
alink= the color the link turns when you click it

3 - Put in an email Address

Skip down to the first input tag:

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="recipient" 
VALUE="your email address goes here">

Replace the VALUE line between the quotes with the email address for which you want the results of your form to go. If you look at the source code on the Example Form you will see my email address there (which means, by the way, that any time you fill in the example forms on this site, I get an email from you!). 

4 - Put in a Subject

The next input tag allows you to specify a subject line. When you get email from your form, whatever you put here will be the subject of your email.

<input 

TYPE="hidden"
NAME="subject"
VALUE="The subject of your form goes here">

On the Example Form, I replaced the VALUE line between the quotes with 

Nonprofit Organization Survey

5 - Required Fields

This is where you can specify parts of the form you require to be filled in. If these parts of the form are left blank, the visitor will be told that the form is incomplete and that they should go back to the form to fill the in required information. On my form, I specified that whoever fills it in should give me their email address, phone number, and the name of their organization. When you put form elements on your page, each element (by element I mean a piece of information you are collecting by having the visitor fill in a blank, check a box, or choose a selection) of your form will have a name. The blank on the Example Form asking for an email address is named "email," and the same is true for the other required fields. 

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="required" 
VALUE="email,phone,organization">

When a visitor to your page submits their form, the KORRnet computer scans what they've entered to see if it complies with what you require. You can list whatever parts of your form you wish to require a visitor to complete. (This is discussed on the next page, in the section on names.)

6 - Another Title

Skip down a few lines to the input tag you see below. When a visitor fills in your form, they will see a page that shows them what they just submitted. This is where you set the title for that page. I inserted "Survey Form Results" for my page title.

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="title" 
VALUE="Survey Form Results">

7 - Return Link

You can include a link back to a page on your site on the page a visitor sees after submitting your form. On the Example Form you are directed back to this forms page. Enter the address to whatever page you want to link back to between the quotes on the VALUE line.

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="return_link_url" 
VALUE="http://www.korrnet.org/yoursite">

8 - Name the Return Link

You can call the return link whatever you like. On the Example Form, I put "Back to the Forms Page" as the return link. On the code above is "Back to Our Home Page."

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="return_link_title" 
VALUE="Back to Our Home Page">

9 - More Colors

This is optional. These input tags allow you to specify the color of the page you will see after the form you make is filled out. Go to the Example Form and try it out. If you leave this alone, you will see the same colors as I use on this site. If you have a color scheme for your site, you may want to change these codes. 

This is what each input tag means:

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="bgcolor"
VALUE="#FFFFFF">

specifies the background color of your page

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="link_color"
VALUE="#CC0000">

specifies the color of the link back to your home page

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="vlink_color"
VALUE="#CC0000">

specifies the color of visited links

<input 

TYPE="hidden" 
NAME="alink_color"
VALUE="#FF9900">

specifies the color the link turns when you click it

The part of each line that you change are the six characters between the quotes and after the pound sign. If you want to make the colors match what you use on your site, look at the source code for one of the pages on your site. Somewhere, probably in the body tag, you will see where your colors have been specified. Copy them and paste them into your form page. For example, on this page when I click View and select Page Source, I see this body tag just below the ending tag for the head of the page:

<body text="#000066" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#CC0000" vlink="#CC0000" alink="#FF9900">

I copied each of the colors from here into the form page. 

Next Topic

As soon as you have this part done, you are ready to start inserting the form elements you want to use on your page.

Please go on to the next topic