[thelist] Re: Need Form HTML Help

[Techwatcher]

Welcome, Paul --
> Hi All,
>
> I am new to this list being referred by a "PCWorker".
>
> I can do most of the basic HTML on my own, but have a couple of
problems
> that I do not know how to handle. I have a client who is using
> www.paybycheck.com . This site has a finite set of parameters that
feed a
> form. I need to know:
>
> 1:  "How (and if) can I concatenate several fields and check boxes
from a
> FrontPage 2000 form into one
> variable to pass with the submit?"
>       If this is not possible, does anyone know where I can get a Java
> Script to accomplish this. I program in Cobol, Fortran, RPG, some BAL
and
> VBA, but I know nothing about Java or JavaScript.

Um, first issue: Most forms are set up to refer to a module written in
a language called PERL, and that module is interfaced to the HTML
though something called CGI (the Common Gateway Interface). It would be
possible that your form was written to use the language Java, or
javascript, but it's quite unlikely. Thus, you need to learn about CGI,
not Java or javascript.

The way CGI obtains values is really simple, and you're certainly seen
if it you ever used a search engine, for example. It just catenates the
values you or your form are sending, after ? or = or some
combination... Go find a simple CGI tutorial (there are several), and
you'll be comfortably up and running in about 20 minutes. You won't
need to learn Perl, probably (looks a lot like C, works a lot like all
those other languages you already know).

>
> 2: My second question is given:
>
> <form method="POST" name="form"  action="https://paybycheck.com/">
> <form method="POST" action="--WEBBOT-SELF--" onSubmit="">      this
is form
> FrontPage 2000
>
> Is it possible to get both of the above POST actions to happen on one
click
> of the submit button.

Next issue: You don't want to do that. The action property is given the
value of what should happen (in this case, use the hypertext transfer
protocol -- the secure version of it -- to load the page set up by
paybycheck to handle the data you just automatically sent to it.

The second action is doing something different; I don't really know
what (sorry, I just refuse to even look at FrontPage, or any other non-
OS MS product!). Someone else might help you with that, but my guess is
it's some sort of built-in testing mechanism.

Cheers --
Carol Stein
techwatcher at accesswriters.com