These fields are used and styled to make filling in a form easier for everyone (especially the blind and keyboard users):

• fieldset, to group like fields together.
• legend, to describe each fieldset
• label with “for“, defined to match the “ID” attributed to the input.
• tabindex, for ordering the tab key input.
• accesskey, for allowing keystrokes.
  • Styling with pseudo-elements
• :focus in CSS, to show which field is active.

Readings

Accessible forms: Guidelines, examples and accessible JavaScript tricks

Mike Foskett, Web Semantics. 2006.

Accessible HTML/XHTML Forms

Ian Lloyd, May 2004. The Web Standards Project. Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced tutorials.

Form Validation, Disabling Browser Caching, Embedding HTML Code

Christopher Heng, The Site Wizard

Form field focus with unobtrusive JavaScript

Joey Marchy. 2006. In the Garage.

Dynamic Drive’s Form Effects

Updated regularly.

Use these various tags to improve keyboard and screenreader access in forms. Read more in Creating Accessible Forms.

• By email
  • FormMail.php, which resides on the ONID server, will allow your visitors to send data to your OSU email address.
    • You can download a version of FormMail.php to an off-campus server running PHP software.
  • Feedback Form Script is much simpler and allows you to build in what you want.
• With .htaccess files. (CS 295)
  • Note that these options were written for the host vendor’s server configuration and may not work for ONID or ENGR servers. They do explain many uses for .htaccess, however.
  • Comprehensive guide to .htaccess
• With Cookies (CS 295)
  • See the next page.
• Write to a Database (CS 295)
  • See the next week’s work.

Scripts written in one of these three languages are usually provided by a web host. Getting information from their support staff about the path to the script can be difficult, and modifying the refer line of the file is generally a simple matter.

• CGI scripts
  • FormMail is a generic HTML form to e-mail gateway that parses the results of any form and sends them to the specified users. This script has many formatting and operational options, most of which can be specified within each form, meaning you don’t need programming knowledge or multiple scripts for multiple forms. Previous versions have had security problems.
• Perl scripts
  • FormMail available in a Perl (.pl) format.
• PHP scripts (3 options)
  • Easy to make your own. See PHP for the World Wide Web chapter 3 to get started. Note corrections to textbook scripts.
  • The ONID server provides use of FormMail.php. To use it, tag a form with the following path:
    • <form action=”http://oregonstate.edu/tools/formmail.php” method=”post”>
    • This will only work if the recipient line goes to an on-campus email address.
    • Use Jack’s Script’s tutorial to properly set up the hidden fields.
  • Download and install a version of formmail.php (several versions of the same name exist)
    • Jack’s Scripts (perhaps out of date)
      
    • Tectite

Read through the Web Security Checklist to get an idea how complicated it is to keep forms and web sites secure. Pay close attention to “Code with security in mind”, step 6.

Creating a Privacy Policy (5 part tutorial)

Ariel Silverstone -The Security Blog

Creating your Privacy Policy

eTrust

In a separate page or message on your form page, tell visitors why you want to hear from the, what you’ll do with their personal data, and where it will be stored. Will you sell it to third parties? Leave it laying around in your email, or store it in a database so you can send them a newsletter? Use the DMA’s form to generate a policy for your web site. Edit the results to meet your needs.