MBA Home : Student Life : Student Organizations : Student Leader Resources : Web Development

Web Development Resources: 

Information provided by http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/services/cbacc/training:

How to create FORMS 

And an addition for interested student organizations: 

How to create SIMPLE DATABASES

How to create FORMS-

To create a form, INSERT- form- form (this adds the submit and reset buttons)

Hit the return key to create space for your form.

Add your form content. This is the hardest part, deciding just what you are going to ask on the form.

Then add form features: INSERT- form- choose your various form features

Now we need to adjust the form field properties so we can name the fields something meaningful to us when we get the results!

          Adjusting FORM FIELD properties-

                   RIGHT CLICK- Choose the form field property

Here you can name that field something easier to remember than the FrontPage defaults

*IMPORTANT- Please note that you should refrain from using spaces (as in hitting the space bar) when naming things, either page names or form fields. Browsers and databases do not register spaces, this is why sites like marthastewart.com are not Martha Stewart.com.

When you have completed your form, adjusting the form field properties for EVERY added form element (each radio button, check box, etc… INCLUDING the submit and reset buttons!!) then you need to tell the form what it is going to do with the results.

Right click - FORM PROPERTIES:

You can set up where to store form results. Your options are to save the results as a text file, which is useful if you plan to import the data into another software program like Excel. You can also send the results via email (be sure to click on the OPTIONS tab for setting up more email options). You can send your data to a database or send as a CGI script (if you were doing some form of e-commerce, which is illegal on UT servers!!) You can also set up the form properties here, like form name.

Click on the OPTIONS button for more options:

File results- where you will save (and name results), and set up file results format (HTML, enriched text, etc…)

Email- set up form email properties. Be sure to include a subject line for your email, otherwise you may not accidentally delete your email!!

Confirmation page- can use default or re-direct your users anywhere you wish (your own confirmation page, your index page, etc…)

How to make your form submit to a SIMPLE DATABASE: (Note: Shannon Roberts, the MBA student organization web contact, cannot offer support or assistance for the database beyond these instructions. FrontPage databases are buggy and should only used at your own risk)

In Form Properties box (shown above), choose "Send to database" and then Click on the OPTIONS button.  

Click the "Create Database" button and go through the FrontPage steps to customize how you want the database to work. 
It will create an Access file of results for you, generally in a folder called "fpdb."

To see the database as a web page:

Create New page. Choose Insert>Database>Results and choose to use the connection that you just used when you created the database. Continue through the FrontPage queries, and it will create a page for you on your web. This page, when accessed in a browser, will show you what the database contains. 

Good luck!