Skip to main content

Three Useful HTML Form Features: Radio Button, Drop-down Content & Data Validation

A simple register form like Facebook sign up form may only contains username, email and password. However, we may also see many complex forms out there such as survey form, visa application form, and school application form, etc.

From Google Image
Just like a random example form  above, this survey form not only has simple text fields such as "Name" & "Email" , but it also has drop-down content and checkbox to collect the information.

With Drop-down and Checkbox, people feel easy to make a choice because they don't have to think their own answers. It also help company to collect the most relevant data and analyze results.

How to add those useful features on your HTML form?

Radio Button/Checkbox

Radio Button and Checkbox are widgets whose state you can change by clicking on them.

Both of them are created using the <input> element with its "type" attribute  set to the value "checkbox" or "radio".

For example, if I want you to choose your favorite pet between dogs and cats, I can ask you to answer my question by clicking the radio button. The HTML code is below:


As the result:


You can also change the radio button to checkbox by changing the <input type="radio"> to <input type="checkbox">

Drop-down Content

Drop-down widgets are a simple way to let users select one of many options without taking up much space in the user interface.(From MDN Web Doc Drop-down Content)

Select box is a common form of drop-down content. It is created with a <select></select> element with one or more <option> element.

For example, I want to create a fruit survey and ask you to select your favorite fruit from the drop-down content. You may choose one of four options: Apple, Banana, Orange, and Cherry.



As the result:

If you want create a multiple choice select box, you can add the "multiple" attribute to the <select> element.

For example: <select multiple id="multi" name="multi">

Form Data Validation

Sometime when I mis-spell the email address on the login text box, it will show "please enter a correct email" message to ask me to change. Until I enter the right email information and password, I can go through the page.

Data validation is very important because it can ensure company to collect the right data information in the right format, and help to protect users privacy.

If you want to add validation on your form, you will add "required" attribute in the <input> element.

For example, If  I want you to tell me your favorite movie, and it is required field, so I will add "required" inside the <input> element.


As the result:

When you enter the movie name, you can submit the form. However, if you try to submit the form without enter correct content, an error message will pop up.




                      


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intermediate Express.js: How To Add Styles & Partials in EJS File?

So far, we only have simple HTML tags and ejs tags in each ejs file. Every template page has no style at all. And the basic HTML header and footer are also missing. Today, I learned how to add styles and partials in ejs file. Link Style Step One: Touch a Separate CSS file I create a new directory "Style" under the "EJSDemo" directory, then I add a new CSS file "app.css" inside "Style" folder. Step Two: Add app.use(express.static()) in the app.js I add app.use(express.static("style")) in the "app.js". This will tell Express.js to serve the content of "Style" directory. Step Three: Write styles in CSS file I simple give body an orange background color and set text color to be grey. Step Four: Link to CSS file in the EJS file I just add <link> tag to link the "app.css" file on the top of the h1 tag in each ejs template. As the result, when I run the app and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Seven Most Common jQuery Methods Last Part: ADD/REMOVE/TOGGLE CLASS()

Add, remove and toggleClass is also a very common way to manipulate style. .addClass() and .removeClass() I add two class selector in the style tag. Class one is to change text color to be green, and class two is change both text and background color.  Now I refresh the page and change h1 text to green by using addClass() method: $("h1").addClass("one") .  If you want to remove the style, you can change it to removeClass("one"). I do the same thing to the list. I change the list color and add a background color by adding the class two style value: $("li").addClass("two") . .toggleClass()  According to jQuery, toggerClass method can add or remove one or more classes from each element in the set of matched elements, depending on either the class's presence or the value of the state argument. I only want to change the first list item color and background by writing: $("li").first().toggleClas...
Post a Comment
Read more

Intro to Backend: Is Browser The Only Place To Send HTTP Request?

Today,  I begin to learn the second part of web develop course: backend. Frontend is the stuff that we can see and interactive with, such as HTML, CSS, and JS. We can type our code, style our page, or write some function to make interaction. However, backend is everything else. For example, we type Target web address in the Internet Browser. As we hit "enter", there are a few steps to go through: 1. The HTTP request is sent to a particular server's IP address. 2. The server figures out what to send us 3. It sends a HTTP response back to us Those process we are hard to see, and it happens in less than one second. The instructor said that the browser is not the only place to send the HTTP request, and there are so many choices out there. In this learning course, we are going to use Postman App . Postman allows us to make HTTP requests and viewer responses. It is really for developers to understand how things are working or debug something. In the P...
Post a Comment
Read more