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Nicole
Posts: 2830
Joined: 9/15/2004
From: Nambucca / Kempsey, Australia
Status: offline
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Accessible CSS Forms... - 6/18/2006 6:14:21
In keeping with the fully accessible new site I'm hoping to create for myself, I've started to look into creating an accessible contact form and am of the understanding that the forms Frontpage creates aren't accessible, and don't validate.
I've used a link Jaybee has provided in the Useful Link sticky on this forum to create an accessible table based form:
Accessible Form Builder
...but obviously my contact details/email address and validating the fields haven't been taken into account. In effect I've only created the text and input fields, but obviously I need to set some required fields and tell it where to send the completed form.
Don't laugh, but up until now I've not needed to understand terms like .asp php, server-side, client-side etc, so in this respect I'm a real novice.
What are my options?
p.s. I'm creating one form for my new site, and another for a client. Mine will be on a .htm page, the client's will be an .asp page.
Nicole
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Tailslide
Posts: 6003
Joined: 5/10/2005
From: Out here on the raggedy edge
Status: online
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RE: Accessible CSS Forms... - 6/18/2006 6:30:03
Easiest thing is just to add the fields you need in then add in some Javascript client-side validation. Then ensure you have some sort of server-side backup (PHP or ASP). Are you on a windows server or a *nix server?
Far as JS validation goes - here's a lovely script that I use on my site: http://juicystudio.com/article/dom-screen-readers.php which produces really user-friendly error messages. It's limited to only a few fields but then that's what most people do anyway for simple contact forms.
Here's a page with examples of JS validation for each and every type of form field: http://www.shiningstar.net/articles/articles/javascript/javascriptvalidations.asp?ID=ROLLA Just find the field type you're after in the source code and copy what they've done.
I personally just use FormMail.nms which is the more secure version of the old faithfull FormMail script. It's Perl (not as I previously stated PHP! Doh!) , easy to customise and just slots in to whatever form fields you've built manually. It will handle the server-side validation for you so that if JS is off then you get the server-side validation. It will run on a windows server but there'll be a bit of tweaking to get it to do so.
Edit: And this link is the absolutely most useful link I've found regarding building accessibile forms: http://www.websemantics.co.uk/tutorials/accessible_forms/ except that I've started wrapping the label tag around both the label and the form input to make it more explicit and easier to understand.
Also - it pays to learn how to do this in both a *nix environment and a ASP environment as you don't know which your client will be using (probably *nix more often than not).
< Message edited by Tailslide -- 6/18/2006 6:50:31 >
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"My strategy is so simple an idiot could have devised it"
Little Blue Plane Web Design | Blood, Sweat & Rust - A Land Rover restoration project
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Tailslide
Posts: 6003
Joined: 5/10/2005
From: Out here on the raggedy edge
Status: online
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RE: Accessible CSS Forms... - 6/18/2006 6:53:30
I just added above that formMail.nms does run on windows servers - with a small amount of tweaking (different paths to stuff etc). That's if you end up with any issues figuring out the ASP validation. It is definitely NOT the same as the old Matt's FormMail script which was very insecure.
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"My strategy is so simple an idiot could have devised it"
Little Blue Plane Web Design | Blood, Sweat & Rust - A Land Rover restoration project
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Mike Cherim
Posts: 49
Joined: 4/17/2006
Status: offline
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RE: Accessible CSS Forms... - 6/29/2006 9:38:47
Here's one that has a lot of features for accessibility, but it is going to be upgraded soon. http://green-beast.com/blog/?page_id=71
It is a PHP form (safer than JS as it's not dependant on users having JS), but would be easy to implement. Change the page from *.html to *.php and set the incoming links to match. Voila, should be easy.
Mike
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http://graybit.com
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spitfire
Posts: 424
Joined: 8/6/2005
Status: offline
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RE: Accessible CSS Forms... - 6/29/2006 19:52:19
yep! IE7 apparently caused a "headless chicken act" which disrupted life as we know it Cap'n.
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