rest/forms-examples

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Revision as of 22:19, 6 October 2005 by DrErnie (talk | contribs) (data)
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Forms Examples

As the first stage of the microformats process, this page collects examples of best/common practice for annotating HTML form to describe input data.

The Problem

The vast majority of websites use some kind of forms to receive input -- far more than provide any kind of web services. Currently, people who want to call into those websites need to manually screen-scape and generate urlencoded, or (worse) MIME multipart.

The purpose of this exploration is to determine if there is any consistent design patterns used by forms and/or semantic tagging that would allow automatic extraction of the information needed to generate HTML input.

Participants

Real-World Examples

<FORM action="http://somesite.com/prog/adduser" method="post">

<LABEL for="firstname">First name: </LABEL>
<INPUT type="text" id="firstname">
<LABEL for="lastname">Last name: </LABEL>
<INPUT type="text" id="lastname">
<LABEL for="email">email: </LABEL>
<INPUT type="text" id="email">
<INPUT type="radio" name="sex" value="Male"> Male
<INPUT type="radio" name="sex" value="Female"> Female
<INPUT type="submit" value="Send"> <INPUT type="reset">

</FORM>
<form action=/search name=f>
<script>...</script>
...Web..Images..Groups..News..Froogle...
<input type=hidden name=hl value=en><input maxLength=256 size=55 name=q value="">
<input type=submit value="Google Search" name=btnG>
<input type=submit value="I'm Feeling Lucky" name=btnI>
</form>
<form name=FltWiz method=post action="MoreInfo.asp" style="margin-top:14;margin-bottom:0">
... ... ... ... ...
  Departing from:
<input type=text name=Fcity1 class=buntext1 maxlength=100 value="">
   <select class=size11 name=Fday1 onChange="SetDay(1)">
    <option value=1>1
   </select>
   <select class=size11 name=Ftime1>
    <option value=420>AM
    <option selected value=720 selected>Noon
    <option value=1020>PM
   </select>
 
   <INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=opts VALUE="spec">
   <INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=Fns VALUE="1">
   <input type=hidden name="RM1CHILD1AGE" value="">
   <input type=hidden name="RM1CHILD2AGE" value="">
   <input type=hidden name="RM1CHILD3AGE" value="">
   <input type=hidden name="RM1CHILD4AGE" value="">    
   <input type=hidden name="RM1CHILD5AGE" value="">
   <input type=hidden name="RM1CHILD6AGE" value="">
   <input type=Submit name=Search value="Search" class=bungreenGoBtn>
</form>

Existing Practices

  • Everybody seems to use tables, not labels

Proposal

  • Is the optimal design pattern:
<label ...>
<input ...>

See Also