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HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 6th Edition
book

HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 6th Edition

by Chuck Musciano, Bill Kennedy
October 2006
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
680 pages
21h 44m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 6th Edition

The <button> Tag

As we described earlier, you create an action button with standard HTML or XHTML by including its type value in the standard <input> tag. For instance, the <input type=submit> form control creates a button that, when selected by the user, tells the browser to send the form's contents to the processing server or to an email address (the mailto option). Display-wise, you don't have any direct control over what that submit button looks like, beyond changing the default label "Submit" to some other word or short phrase (e.g., "Hit me" or "Outta here!").

First introduced in the HTML 4.0 standard, the <button> tag acts the same as <input>, but it gives you more control over how the browser displays the element. In particular, all of the attributes you might use with the <input type=button> element are acceptable with the <button> tag.

The <button> Button

Neither the HTML 4 nor the XHTML standard is overly clear as to what display enhancements to a form the <button> element should provide, other than to suggest that the contents should be 3D and visually appear to react like a push button ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596527322Errata Page