User Guide

44 Chapter 4 Retrieving and Formatting Data

Form notes and considerations

• To make the coding process easy to follow, name form controls the same as

target database fields.

• For ease of use, limit radio buttons to between three and five mutually exclusive

options. If you need more options, consider a drop-down select list.

• Use list boxes to allow the user to choose from many options or to chose multiple

items from a list.

• All the data that you collect on a form is automatically passed as form variables to

the associated action page.

• Check boxes and radio buttons do not pass to action pages unless they are

selected on a form. If you try to reference these variables on the action page, you

receive an error if they are not present.

• You can dynamically populate drop-down select lists using query data. See

“Dynamically Populating List Boxes” on page 82 for details.

Arlington

<option value="Boston">Boston

Cambridge

Minneapolis

<option value="Seattle">Seattle

</select>

Create a drop-down list box named City

and populate it with the values

“Arlington,” “Boston,” “Cambridge,”

“Minneapolis,” and “Seattle.”

<input type="checkbox" name=

"Contractor" value="Yes|No"

checked>Yes

Create a check box that allows users to

specify whether they want to list

employees who are contractors. Make

the box selected by default.

<input type="Reset"

name="ResetForm" value="Clear

Form">

Create a reset button to allow users to

clear the form. Put the text Clear Form on

the button.

<input type="Submit"

name="SubmitForm" value="Submit">

Create a submit button to send the values

that users enter to the action page for

processing. Put the text Submit on the

button.

Code Description