Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Designer 2007 Bible

9.3. Creating Forms

The form components based on form handlers available with FPSE have been some of the most commonly used Web components of FrontPage 2003. They have also been inherited by SharePoint Designer, although the access points for configuring these forms have changed a little. FrontPage forms can be used to submit data to various types of files, to send to e-mail addresses, or to store it in databases. Web designers can use the SharePoint Designer interface to configure the forms, and the FPSE components implement the actual function of saving the data to the back-end file.

Because of the simplicity introduced by these form components to develop interactive forms for collecting data from users visiting the Web sites, these components have been a feature of choice for many Web site developers for a long time.

9.3.1. Using HTML form controls

The first step in creating a form by using SharePoint Designer is to collect data from a user to create the form. Most of the form controls that you might want to place in your form are available in the Form Controls section of the Toolbox task pane.

To create a simple form using the form controls in SharePoint Designer, follow these steps:

1. Choose Task Panes Toolbox to display the Toolbox task pane.

2. If the form control doesn't already exist on the Web page, using the Form Controls section, double-click Form to insert an HTML <form> ...