Advanced topics on HTML forms
What is a Formmail script?
A Formmail script collects the data submitted in a form and sends the data
to a given email address.
A formmail is the easiest way to collect data from the HTML forms.
These are CGI programs or scripts installed on the server side.
Most of the ISPs provide form-mail script for free. In addition, there are free open source
formmail scripts available in the web
Read more about formmail here: Sending HTML form data to an email address
What is a Secure Form ?
When you submit data using a form, it is sent as 'plain text'. Somebody listening to the network communication can trap the data. In the html forms where very sensitive information (such as credit card number) is supplied, this can turn to be a security risk.
In such cases, a secure form is used. There is not much difference in the html code of the form. The difference is in the server configuration and the ACTION URL.A secure form will have its ACTION URL pointing to a URL starting with
https://
like this: (from hotmail login page)
<form name="passwordform" action="https://lc3.law5.hotmail.passport.com/cgi-bin/dologin"
method="POST" target="_top" >
In this case, the browser will communicate to the server using SSL(Secure Socket Layer) the data sent will be encrypted.
Next time when you submit very critical information like your credit card number in a web page form, make sure that it is a secure form!
You have learned how to create a form using HTML in this tutorial. But, in order to use the power of html form, you have to learn a server side scripting language like PHP, Perl, JSP, or ASP. My personal recommendation is PHP as it is very easy to learn and program.
Happy programming!
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