Slide 3.3: HTML web user interface construction

Slide 3.2: How to construct the Programming Exercise I
Slide 3.4: Calling a CGI Perl script
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How to Construct the Exercise I (Cont.)

HTML Web User Interface Construction HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the basic language used to write web pages. It is generally not difficult to create a static web page. However, a dynamic web page needs the support from application programs on a host computer. The following example shows how to create a dynamic web page of searching cartoon characters by using string matching. An empty string will display all characters.

/home/wenchen/public_html/351/week3/CGIDemo.html

<html>
   ...
 <form method="post" 
   action="http://people.cs.und.edu/~wenchen/cgi-bin/351/week3/CGIDemo.pl">
  Name: <input type="text" name="name" value="mon" size="20">
  <input type="submit" name="act" value="Submit">
  <input type="submit" name="act" value="Help">
  <input type="reset"             value="Reset"> 
 </form>
   ...
</html>

http://people.cs.und.edu/~wenchen/351/week3/CGIDemo.html

…
Name:

…

HTML FORMs are used to select different kinds of user input. A form is an area that can contain form elements. Form elements are elements that allow the user to enter information (like text fields, textarea fields, drop-down menus, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc.) in a form.

type="text": It specifies a single line text entry field.
type="submit": When the button is clicked, the form is submitted.
type="reset": When the user clicks the button, all the fields in the form are reset to their initial values.