Part III: Making It Cool with Multimedia and JavaScript in Java

Making QR Code 2d barcode in Java Part III: Making It Cool with Multimedia and JavaScript

2 In the Property inspector, give your form a name Dreamweaver automatically gives each form you create a distinct name (form1, form2, and so on), but I prefer to change the name to something that has more meaning, such as contact for this contact form You can name your form whatever you like but don t use spaces or special characters 3 Specify the action for the form For the formmailpl script used in this example (as well as many other scripts you might use), the action is simply the path to the script s location on your server In Figure 12-10, you can see that I ve entered the address /cgi-bin/formmailpl The address you enter depends on your service provider, but a common convention is to call the folder where CGI scripts are stored cgi-bin The last part of the address (formmailpl) is the name of the script In this case, it s a Perl script, indicated by the pl extension You can only use the Browse button (the yellow folder icon in the Property inspector) to automatically enter an address in the Action field if you re working on a live server and Dreamweaver has identified the location of your script, or if you have the script on your local system in the same directory structure that exists on your server In most cases, however, it s simplest just to ask your service provider or programmer for the address and type it in the Action field

4 In the Method field, use the drop-down arrow to choose Get, Post, or Default Again, what you choose depends on your script, but Dreamweaver s default is Post If you re using a script, such as formmail, which is featured in the final sections of this chapter, the best option is Post The Get option is generally used for nondestructive, safe form transactions that may be repeated, such as a search engine Transactions with the Get option are generally stored in the log files on a server and in a browser s history files, so this option isn t recommended for sensitive data, such as financial information The Post option is generally used for transactions that occur only once, such as sending an e-mail with the data from a form, registering for a service, or unsubscribing to a newsletter Post can also handle larger chunks of data than Get

5 Click the Target option to specify what the browser does when the submit action is completed If you choose _blank, the results page opens in a new browser window If you leave this field blank, the browser window is simply replaced with the results page A results page is usually a simple HTML page with a message, such as Thanks for playing, delivered when the Submit button is clicked 6 Use the Enctype field to specify how the data is formatted when it s returned (see Figure 12-11) For example, if you re using a form mail script, the Enctype field determines how the text appears in your e-mail when the contents of the form are sent to you By default, this field in blank

7 Use the Class field at the far right of the Property inspector to apply a CSS style to the form In this example, I applied CSS to some of the elements in the form, such as the text, but not to the entire form That takes care of all the options in the Property inspector You still need to insert a hidden form field into this form to make it work with the formmail pl script, as shown in the next exercise