| > Can a form span multiple html documents?
No. But a FORM can span multiple "pages" (as defined by the
renderer, ie. the users browser, ie. "screen full").
> Can multiple forms be submitted as one action?
yes, using JavaScript. With just plain HTML, no.
> Am I making any sense? :-)
That's something you'll have to decide for yourself :-)
> After the information is gathered from these multiple pages, I
> would then like it submitted in one form action to be sent to my
> email address.
If I'm reading you right you don't want one FORM that
straddles multiple documents, but a form on each page,
where the document returned from submitting the FORM on
one page brings up another page with a FORM that asks for
additional information. And to keep the server stateless,
you want when you submit the final form on the final document
to submit all the information entered on all the forms the
user filled out.
If you are generating the documents (HTML) on the fly, this
is quite easy to do. What you want to do is to generate
each FORM with <INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=... VALUE=...> elements
that contains the data entered by the user on the previous FORM.
So each FORM in succession accumulates all the information
entered on all previous FORMs. Do make sure to keep the NAME's
on the set of FORMs unique.
This is actually quite common in a situation where you enter
information on the 1st FORM, then get a "confirmation" page
that outputs what you entered and you press "confirm" on
the second FORM to actually do the real action you want.
> Common to both steps (forms) are the requirement for the individual's
> name and email address. Rather than making them enter this info
> separately on each page, it would be nice to enter it once (on
> form #1, for example) and somehow cache the info for form #2.
again, use HIDDEN form elements to carry forward elements entered
on previous forms in the sequence of forms.
> I've heard of "cookies" though I have no knowledge of their use and
> I'm not sure if this would be a practical implenetation.
alot of people disable cookies in their browsers so I'd avoid
them.
|
| > Can a form span multiple html documents?
No. There is no such thing from an HTTP/HTML point of view. HTTP
closes the connection after each request is completed.
> Can multiple forms be
> submitted as one action? Am I making any sense? :-)
No, except in the sense that the receiving software will have to treat
all the received information as multiple forms. That can be done, you just
can't have multiple true forms sent in one action.
> As a workaround, I have considered placing an anchor in order to
> jump elsewhere within the document to the next screen of
> information, but because of differences in screen sizes, etc. the
> preferable way for me would be to have multiple pages (documents).
Anchors have their own problems (I know because I tried to use them).
In essense, the browser will refetch the page with it's defaults, rather than
what's been filled in so far.
> After the information is gathered from these multiple pages, I
> would then like it submitted in one form action to be sent to my
> email address.
>
> Is this possible? I am open to suggestions...
No, but it's a nice idea, except the one about it being sent to your
email address...
What you should do, is set up the first form and have them submit that
form to an action which will take that data and put it into a database which
will return a key. Have the result of the action be a new HTML page containing
that key as a hidden entry in the form (<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME=KEY
VALUE=key1234>. When they submit that you can use that to update the database
information each time they enter something. In fact, if this is an order
entry system, you can give the customer a key id that they can use to bypass
the initial information screens after the first time. Note that all of this
requires programming on the server side and an understanding of CGI, database
access, etc. This is a programming problem, not a HTML problem. You may
want to look at Livewire Pro if the server is Netscape, or Active Server Pages/
VBScript if the server is Microsoft's IIS. Any other server would probably
need some custom-build code, done the old-fashioned coding way.
Danny
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