Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Adding Basic Interactivity with HTML Forms and JavaScript

In This Chapter

• Engaging Web site visitors with interactive content

• Considering coding

• Creating HTML forms

• Adding buttons and boxes to Web forms

• Working with password fields, hidden fields, and text areas

• Giving Web site visitors multiple choices

• Using JavaScript event handlers

• Thinking about server side technology

Interactivity is a wonderful thing. It can make a Web site dance and sing. But as Web designers, we are devout cowards when the need arises to write code. However, you can create many forms of interactivity without writing the first word of code. The Web form is a perfect example, which is comprised of items like text fields, check boxes, radio buttons, submit buttons, and so on. You can create one in an application like Dreamweaver by selecting the proper menu commands. In this chapter, we show you how to create forms and master JavaScript event handlers.

Understanding Interactivity

An interactive Web site is one that does more than appear on your monitor — it has bells and whistles that the user can interact with. Any Web site that requires input from a visitor and delivers different content based on user input can be considered interactive. Interactivity can be as simple as greeting a visitor based on the name she inputs in a Web form, or as complex as delivering information from a database. You can add a lot of interactivity to your designs by adding a bit of JavaScript code to a page, by creating a DHTML page, ...