Forms and ASP

One of the fundamental tasks for most site designers is to gather information from the user. This information may be as simple as a zip code, or as complex as credit card numbers, shipping addresses and choices of delivery method. The gathering of information generally uses two pages of code:

• A Form page which uses HTML to ask for the information

• A Response page written in ASP, which accepts and processes the information

Many HTML books discuss the form side but leave out the response side, since it's server-specific. Many ASP books discuss the response side but assume that you're familiar with the form side, since it is HTML specific. So beginners are frequently left without an integrated form- and response- side manual. This appendix aims to be your one-stop source for cut and paste code to handle both sides of the coin.

Please note that this appendix does not cover the aesthetic attributes of forms, such as ALIGN or SIZE, which don't affect the interaction of ASP and forms. These topics are covered in any HTML book, including Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML, and CSS by Jon Duckett published by Wrox, ISBN: 0-7645-7078-1. They are important for good user interface design, but we'll leave them out here in order to compact the code and focus our attention on the structural aspects of the examples.

We will cover:

• General procedures of forms and response pages

• RequestSniffer, a tool to learn about forms and ASP

• Text Boxes

• Checkboxes

• Option buttons

• Multiple submit buttons on one form

• Lists and their variations

• Hidden fields

• Passwords

• Text Area

• Multiple forms on one page

• Images and Hotspots

• File Selector

• HotKeys (shortcut keys) and Tab Order

Remember that all of the code samples from this appendix can be downloaded from our web site at