Creating Web forms at FIU

Forms can be used to accept information from the people who view your pages. When they `submit' their form, a mail message is sent to the address(es) you specify.

Two files are required in your www account to create a form,

The form itself (an .html document) and
a text file specifying the format of the mail message and to whom the message should be sent.

The form itself is a standard .html file, including the following section. This example has two boxes for filling in information:

< form method="post" action="http://cgi.fiu.edu/cgi-bin/cgiemail/~username/filename.txt">
Your age: < input text name="ageinfo" size=30 >
Your email address: < input text name="emailinfo" size =25 >
< input type="submit" value="Submit info">
</form>

In the section above, the words in quotation marks (ageinfo and emailinfo) are variables that hold whatever information the person who is filling out the form types in. When they click on your submit button, the information within the variables will appear in the appropriate boxes below.

A second file needs to exist in your www subdirectory. This is the file referenced above called filename.txt. This contains the contents of the mail message. The To: and Subject: lines need to be the first lines of the file, followed by a blank line, then the text of your message:

To: username@fiu.edu
Subject: subject of message

This form was submitted by: [ageinfo]
Their email address is [emailinfo]

Thanks for using the form

What you call the files is up to you. Include your email address on the To: line of the mail message. This is where the mail message will be sent.

An example form is located at http://www.fiu.edu/~jeffk/myform.html
For additional help on using forms, take a look at the following site:

NCSA Form Help
(www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/fill-out-forms/overview.html)

[FIU WWW Home]

maintained by wsg_support