Dreamweaver CS6: The Missing Manual

Creating a Form

In Dreamweaver, you can build forms with one-click ease using the Insert panel’s Forms category (see Figure 12-2).

To begin, you need to insert a <form> tag in your web page to indicate the boundaries of the form:

1. In Design view, click the location in the document window where you want to insert the form.

   You might decide to place it after a paragraph of introductory text, for example, or into a <div> tag that holds the page’s main content.

   Note

   If you plan to use an HTML table to organize a form’s fields (see Inserting a Table), insert the form first, and then insert the table inside the <form> tag.

2. On the Insert panel, select the Forms category.

   The tab reveals 22 form-building tools.

3. Click the Form icon (the very first icon in the list).

   If you’re a menu-driven person, choose Insert→Form→Form.

   Note

   What you see when you insert an object using the Insert panel depends on whether you position your cursor in Design view or Code view. These instructions assume you’re inserting form elements in Design view. If you’re in Code view, you’ll get Dreamweaver’s Tag Editor instead. Basically, the Tag Editor provides more options up front, but nothing you can’t set later with the Property Inspector. In addition, unless you know HTML well, the Tag Editor can easily insert improper HTML.

   Either way, a red, dashed-line rectangle appears in the document window, indicating the form’s boundaries. (If you don’t see it, choose View→Visual Aids→Invisible Elements.) The top line represents the ...