Forms

Form tags allow you to design fill-out forms. These forms enable you to gather information from your users, let them send you reference questions, or enable you to create an interface to an on-line database. Behind the form you will need to write a CGI (common gateway interface) script. The CGI script is a program that tells your server how to process the information. CGI scripts are commonly written in Pearl or C++, but just about any programming language will do. I will not cover CGI scripts in this tutorial--mainly because the type of CGI script that you write depends on the platform that your on, and also because I do not write CGI scripts. I draw the line at programming. When I need a CGI script I turn to either my campus computing center, or other people who already know how to write programs. Unless you have absolutely no computer support people, I would recommend you turn your CGI scripting over to your computer center programmers. If you already know a programming language you can count yourself ahead of the game.

Go to Forms Tutorial

Tables

Tables allow you to organize and summarize information for you users in a convenient way. The only issue that you should be aware of is that older browsers do not support tables. Your user must have Netscape 1.1 or above, Mosaic 2.0 or above.

Go to Tables Tutorial

HTML 3.0 Additions to Existing Elements

ALIGN has been added to several popular tags, including the heading and paragraph tags. By adding it to the tag, the browser aligns the text accordingly.

EXAMPLE:
<H3 ALIGN="CENTER">Center this heading</H3>
<P ALIGN="LEFT">Left justify this paragraph</P>

None of the tags below work with browsers on the market as of July 1, 1996. The only browser that supports these HTML 3.0 tags is Arena, which is an experimental browser that only runs on Linx and Sun workstations. The source code is available for those who wish to compile it for themselves. <LH> List Heading

Can be used with <UL>, <OL>, <DL>. The <LH> must be the first tag following the opening list tag. HTML 2.0 browsers will have trouble reading this tag.

EXAMPLE:
<UL>
<LH>New List Heading</LH>
<LI>Be careful how you use it</LI>
<LI>Will cause problems for HTML 2.0 browsers</LI>
</UL><OL>...</OL>

New Attributes:

• CONTINUE: Continues the numbering of list items from where the last ordered list left off. This attribute will be ignored by HTML 2.0 browsers.
• SEQNUM="x": Assigns the starting number to the first item in an ordered list. This attribute will be ignored by HTML 2.0 browsers.

New Attributes:

• PLAIN: Tells the browser to leave out the bullets.
• SRC="URL": Assigns an image to be used as the bullet.
• WRAP="vert" or "horiz": Used to create multicolumn lists. Tells the browser how to wrap the items on the screen.

New HTML 3.0 Elements

Defines a block of text, or image, to be used as a page banner. The banner is fixed and will not scroll when the reader moves down the page. The BANNER element is profitably used when you want your banner displayed at all times. There are no browsers that currently support the BANNER element. <DIV>...</DIV> Division Tags

Used to create a block within a document and assign generic properties to the entire block. For example, if you wanted an entire section to be right-aligned you would surround the block of text with the division tags. HTML 2.0 browsers will simply ignore the tags.

ATTRIBUTES:

• ALIGN="left", "right", "center": Aligns the text on the page.

  <DIV ALIGN="right">
  <P>This sentence would displayed right-aligned on the Web browser.</P>
  </DIV>

• CLEAR: Instructs the browser on how text should flow around an object like an image, or table. HTML 2.0 browsers will ignore this element. (Can also be used in <HR>, <Hn>, <P>, <PRE>, <OL>, <UL>, <DL>, <LI>, <DT>, <DD>, <BR>
  • CLEAR="left": Will move the text in the element down the page until the left margin is clear of the object.
  • CLEAR="right": Will move the text in the element down the page until the right margin is clear of the object.
  • CLEAR="all": Will move the text in the element down the page until the left margin is clear of the object.
  • CLEAR="x pixels": Will move the text in the element down the page until text is "x" pixels clear of the object.

Tells the browser to present the text in a larger font. This element is recognized by the Netscape Navigator 2.0 + browsers. <SMALL>...</SMALL>

Tells the browser to present the text in a smaller font. This element is recognized by the Netscape Navigator 2.0 + browsers.