A web page can function as a form. A form lets the reader type information and send it to the Web server, which can store, analyze, or act on the information depending on how it is programmed. For example, if you create a Web version of a product catalog, you can set up one of your Web pages as an order form so that a customer can order your products using the Web. Some other uses for Web forms include the following:
Creating a form is more difficult than creating a basic Web page. Setting up the form controls and options on the page is easy. To actually do something with the data that the reader enters, a form requires a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script written in a script or programming language such as Perl.
When the reader presses the button that sends the data to the server (submits the form), the server processes the data according to the script. A script can simply send the contents of the form somewhere, or perform more complex tasks, such as collecting the data into a database or generating a new page based on the form's content. In Adobe PageMill, you can create one form per page. Otherwise, the options are limited only by the capabilities of the script programmer and the language he or she uses.
You can add form objects to a page as easily as you can add text, graphics, or links. Form objects are available from the right side of the button bar at the top of a page. The form objects available from Adobe PageMill correspond to the form objects available in Version 2.0 of HTML. The checkbox, radio button, text area, text field, and pop-up menu objects are also standard user-interface objects in the Macintosh and Windows operating systems.