html form creation for a noob , Im doing something wrong!

Hi guys,

been stuck on this all morning. really need some help.
I need to put a simple web form on a page that involves simple name, email, enquiry boxes and a submit button

In Frewway 5.3 how do I go about " building the form from scratch. Not the PHP bit, I think I can cope with that later, just the actual visual elements of the form?

Is it HTML boxes? or do you need to start with a table? What ever I do I can’t seem to get the text box to change height? I can only drag them length ways. What am I doing wrong? The enquiry box needs to be say 60 x 30 pixels but Im left with just a tiny default space.

thanks for any help


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Personally I feel the best way to go on a form is to start by placing
a table on your page, so:

  1. create a table with 3 columns and 5 rows for the elements you need.
  2. resize the columns to give them widths of 120,10 and 400 (You can
    change these later to suite).
  3. Insert your cursor into the top left cell and type Name:, then the
    cell below and type Email: and Message: into the cell below that.
  4. Now insert the cursor into the top right cell and: Insert > Text
    field, do the same for the cell below that one and the next.
  5. Now select the two cells below the last (Email) field you inserted
    and join them together (Item > Table > Join).
  6. Insert the cursor into the larger cell you just created by joining
    two together and: insert > Text Area
  7. Select all the cells with text and a text field (Not the text area
    cell) and select the little box cell icon in the inspector and click
    the centre align icon so the text and elements (except the text area)
    align centrally in the cells. It looks better f you do this to all the
    elements and text except the text area because of the way we have
    constructed this outlay.
  8. Select all the cells that have text in them and adjust their height
    to 24 in the inspector.
  9. Insert your cursor in the row under the text area and Insert >
    Button, adjust the height of this cell to 30 and then also align the
    cell content to middle as you did with the text and elements in the
    other cells so the button sits a little distance below the text area.
  10. Select all the cells on the left with text and align the text to
    the right, now you have a nice 10px gap between the text and the
    elements.

You can do this using 2 rows and create a style to indent the text on
the left and create the space between the text and the elements that
way, which ever you prefer.

You can use the free Form Element Extender action and apply it to each
form element text field and text area, this way you can get all the
widths to line up nicely, even colour the border and fill of the
fields, you can make the fill change when the cursor is inserted if
you want to, then change go back to the original colour when the field
looses focus. This action is compatible with the easiForm actions,
although I have not tried it with other form processing methods I am
sure it will work with them also. The following tutorial is a little
out of date as the Form Element Styler action can now do more than
shown here but it will be a good start for the action and is
straightforward to implement the things that are not touched on:
http://www.easibase.com/freeway/fesaction.php

Now that is the layout created you need to decide what you will use to
process your form, depending on what option you use will reflect as to
what else you need to do:

PHP easiForm actions: (Server needs to be ioncube compatible and there
is a small charge for the actions)
Tutorial: http://easibase.com/freeway/freeway_form.php

PHP Feedback action: (Free, don’t know the link but it can be
downloaded from the http://www.actionsforge.com/ website.

FormsToGo: Small charge, just do a search in google and that will turn
it up.

There are other form processing scripts out there on Hotscripts.

Anyway… this is what I consider a good way to put together your form
elements.

HTH

On Jan 11, 2009, at 2:38 PM, akira9000 wrote:

Hi guys,

been stuck on this all morning. really need some help.
I need to put a simple web form on a page that involves simple name,
email, enquiry boxes and a submit button

In Frewway 5.3 how do I go about " building the form from scratch.
Not the PHP bit, I think I can cope with that later, just the actual
visual elements of the form?

Is it HTML boxes? or do you need to start with a table? What ever I
do I can’t seem to get the text box to change height? I can only
drag them length ways. What am I doing wrong? The enquiry box needs
to be say 60 x 30 pixels but Im left with just a tiny default space.


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Also take a look at http://actionsforge.com/actions/view/64-freezeformaction

  • FreezeForm Action ia simple Action to control the size of each
    input box on your web form.

Colin

On 11 Jan 2009, at 15:00, Mike B wrote:

Personally I feel the best way to go on a form is to start by
placing a table on your page, so:

  1. create a table with 3 columns and 5 rows for the elements you need.
  2. resize the columns to give them widths of 120,10 and 400 (You can
    change these later to suite).
  3. Insert your cursor into the top left cell and type Name:, then
    the cell below and type Email: and Message: into the cell below that.
  4. Now insert the cursor into the top right cell and: Insert > Text
    field, do the same for the cell below that one and the next.
  5. Now select the two cells below the last (Email) field you
    inserted and join them together (Item > Table > Join).
  6. Insert the cursor into the larger cell you just created by
    joining two together and: insert > Text Area
  7. Select all the cells with text and a text field (Not the text
    area cell) and select the little box cell icon in the inspector and
    click the centre align icon so the text and elements (except the
    text area) align centrally in the cells. It looks better f you do
    this to all the elements and text except the text area because of
    the way we have constructed this outlay.
  8. Select all the cells that have text in them and adjust their
    height to 24 in the inspector.
  9. Insert your cursor in the row under the text area and Insert >
    Button, adjust the height of this cell to 30 and then also align the
    cell content to middle as you did with the text and elements in the
    other cells so the button sits a little distance below the text area.
  10. Select all the cells on the left with text and align the text to
    the right, now you have a nice 10px gap between the text and the
    elements.

You can do this using 2 rows and create a style to indent the text
on the left and create the space between the text and the elements
that way, which ever you prefer.

You can use the free Form Element Extender action and apply it to
each form element text field and text area, this way you can get all
the widths to line up nicely, even colour the border and fill of the
fields, you can make the fill change when the cursor is inserted if
you want to, then change go back to the original colour when the
field looses focus. This action is compatible with the easiForm
actions, although I have not tried it with other form processing
methods I am sure it will work with them also. The following
tutorial is a little out of date as the Form Element Styler action
can now do more than shown here but it will be a good start for the
action and is straightforward to implement the things that are not
touched on:
Tutorial: Form Element Styler

Now that is the layout created you need to decide what you will use
to process your form, depending on what option you use will reflect
as to what else you need to do:

PHP easiForm actions: (Server needs to be ioncube compatible and
there is a small charge for the actions)
Tutorial: http://easibase.com/freeway/freeway_form.php

PHP Feedback action: (Free, don’t know the link but it can be
downloaded from the http://www.actionsforge.com/ website.

FormsToGo: Small charge, just do a search in google and that will
turn it up.

There are other form processing scripts out there on Hotscripts.

Anyway… this is what I consider a good way to put together your
form elements.

HTH

On Jan 11, 2009, at 2:38 PM, akira9000 wrote:

Hi guys,

been stuck on this all morning. really need some help.
I need to put a simple web form on a page that involves simple
name, email, enquiry boxes and a submit button

In Frewway 5.3 how do I go about " building the form from scratch.
Not the PHP bit, I think I can cope with that later, just the
actual visual elements of the form?

Is it HTML boxes? or do you need to start with a table? What ever I
do I can’t seem to get the text box to change height? I can only
drag them length ways. What am I doing wrong? The enquiry box needs
to be say 60 x 30 pixels but Im left with just a tiny default space.


freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options


freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
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akira9000,

A small correction, I said… ‘You can use the free Form Element Extender action and apply it to each form element text field and text area, thi…’ when I should have said ‘Form Element Styler’ action, but it is available at the url I supplied:

http://www.easibase.com/freeway/fesaction.php

sorry… :slight_smile:


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