Form Examples

General tutorials

I'm certainly not an expert on forms, however, they are needed and are very useful. I can remodel and make changes to forms, and I would suggest that you at least get to that point of efficiency. Below are some resources that will help and guide you, however, simply doing a google search for "html forms" will yield everything you could need!

Note: Some of the tutorials are relatively old and describe constructs in older HTML versions only. Generally, browser support is excellent for HTML 2.0 forms (used correctly) but somewhat narrower for HTML 3.2, forms and especially for HTML 4 forms.

• The Intermediate HTML tutorial by Eric A. Meyer contains an excellent presentation of forms. Limited to forms as defined in HTML 2.0, it keeps things simple. It also describes the big picture of using forms, not just the HTML part of the matter. For more background, see How the web works: HTTP and CGI explained by Lars Marius Garshol.
• How to write HTML Forms by James K. Tauber. A nice, compact illustration of forms and form fields as in HTML 2.0.
• Mosaic for X version 2.0 Fill-Out Form Support. A "historical" document which is partly very outdated but contains several examples.
• Many people have found Joe Barta's Form Tutor very readable. And it explains and illustrates things nicely, divided into lessons. Unfortunately, it teaches to use mailto: URLs for forms processing (though with some warnings).
• Guide to Standards-Compliant XHTML: Forms by Lawrence Edwards. A compact presentation of the constructs using modern (XHTML) syntax.
• The section on the FORM element in my Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples was written to be a reference illustrated with examples rather than a tutorial. However, parts of it and the other sections (on form fields) linked to it can perhaps be used also as a tutorial to forms as defined in HTML 3.2.
• Part Forms of the HTML Code Tutorial alias Mikodocs Guide to HTML by Miko O'Sullivan. An illustrative explanation, divided into digestible pieces; starts from the basics but explains many new (HTML 4) features too. Also discusses and exemplifies the use of client-side scripting in conjunction with forms.
• Stephanos Piperoglou's Giving Form to Forms (part of HTML with Style), which also covers a wide range from basics to advanced (HTML 4) issues.