HTML tags you will use in your forms

This is a brief overview of the tags you will be using when you create forms for publication on web.ucar.edu. You should also review this user manual for HTML forms published by The National Center for Supercompting Applications. This web site offers a clear discussion of key concepts and a progressive series of examples that show many different ways to apply forms tags and attributes.

The hypertext links from the tags described below connect you to a detailed HTML Reference Manual published by Sandia National Laboratories; it describes the operation of each tag and each of its attributes. Note that some of the information may be out of date or may not apply to all browsers because the technology is evolving much faster than the standards.

To create a form

Hypertext forms are delimited by <FORM> and </FORM> tags. Within the <FORM> tag, you must specify the ACTION and METHOD attributes:

ACTION specifies the URL of a cgi-bin script on the server that processes the contents of the form. For web.ucar.edu, use ACTION="http://www.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/feedback.cgi".
METHOD selects the method that is used to submit the form to the server. For web.ucar.edu, use METHOD="POST".

To create the elements within a form

Three types of elements direct users' input to an HTML form. Each element has numerous possible variations.

The <INPUT> tag defines an area for user input, this includes single-line text boxes, radio buttons, checkboxes, and the "Submit" and "Reset" buttons. You will use INPUT tags with the TYPE="HIDDEN" attribute to control how the feedback.cgi script processes your form.
The <TEXTAREA> tag creates multi-line text input boxes.
The <SELECT> tag, in conjunction with one or more <OPTION> tags, renders a list of pre-defined choices the user can select as input to your form.

For general information about forms

Many web sites provide information about creating forms. Yahoo lists some of these sites, and Andy Tatum at Georgia State University provides another list. Note that while these other sites offer various approaches to learning how to create forms, none of them use the feedback.cgi script required for forms published on web.ucar.edu.

Return to Forms Introduction: HTML tags
Return to Forms Examples: How to use templates