HTML. Unidad 10. Formularios avanzados.

Cómo estructurar un formulario HTML

Una vez examinados los conceptos básicos, vamos a ver más en detalle los elementos que se utilizan para proporcionar estructura y significado a las diferentes partes de un formulario. La flexibilidad que presentan los formularios los convierte en una de las estructuras más complejas y completas en HTML, puesto que puedes crear cualquier tipo de formulario básico a partir de los elementos y atributos destinados a esta función. El uso de una estructura correcta al crear un formulario HTML te ayudará a garantizar que el formulario presente las características de usabilidad y accesibilidad adecuadas.

El elemento <form>

Tal como explicamos en la unidad anterior, el elemento <form> se utiliza para definir un formulario y los atributos que determinan el comportamiento su comportamiento. Cada vez que desees crear un formulario HTML, debes empezar utilizando este elemento y anidando todo el contenido dentro de él. Muchas tecnologías de asistencia y complementos del navegador pueden descubrir elementos <form> e implementar códigos de apoyo (hooks) especiales para que sean más fáciles de usar.

Es posible usar controles de formulario fuera de un elemento <form>. Si lo haces, por defecto ese control no tendrá nada que ver con ningún formulario específico, a menos que lo asocies a algún formulario con el atributo form. Esto se introdujo para permitir vincular explícitamente un control a un formulario, incluso si este no está dentro de él.

A continuación vamos a exponer los elementos estructurales que puedes utilizar en un formulario.

Los elementos <fieldset> y <legend>

El elemento <fieldset> es una forma cómoda de crear grupos de controles de formulario (también denominados widgets) que comparten el mismo propósito, con fines semánticos y de aplicación de estilo. Puedes etiquetar un elemento <fieldset> incluyendo un elemento <legend> justo debajo de la etiqueta de apertura <fieldset>. El contenido textual del elemento <legend> describe formalmente el propósito del elemento <fieldset> que está incluido dentro.

For maximum usability/accessibility, you are advised to surround each list of related items in a <fieldset>, with a <legend> providing an overall description of the list.  Each individual pair of <label>/<input> elements should be contained in its own list item (or similar). The associated <label> is generally placed immediately after the radio button or checkbox, with the instructions for the group of radio button or checkboxes generally being the content of the <legend>. See the examples in the previous unit for structural examples.

Muchas tecnologías de asistencia utilizarán el elemento <legend> como si fuera una parte de la etiqueta de cada control dentro del elemento <fieldset> correspondiente. Por ejemplo, algunos lectores de pantalla como Jaws y NVDA leerán el contenido de la leyenda antes de decir la etiqueta de cada control.

Here is a little example:

<form>
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Fruit juice size</legend>
    <p>
      <label><input type="radio" name="size" value="small" />Small</label>
    </p>
    <p>
      <label><input type="radio" name="size" value="medium" />Medium</label>
    </p>
    <p>
      <label><input type="radio" name="size" value="large" />Large</label>
    </p>
  </fieldset>
</form>

Fruit juice size

Small

Medium

Large

Al leer el formulario anterior, un lector de pantalla dirá «Tamaño del zumo de fruta: pequeño» para el primer control de formulario, «Tamaño del zumo de fruta: mediano» para el segundo y «Tamaño del zumo de fruta: grande» para el tercero.

El caso de uso que se muestra en este ejemplo es uno de los más importantes. Cada vez que tengas un conjunto de botones de opción, debes anidarlos dentro de un elemento <fieldset>. Hay otros casos de uso y el elemento <fieldset> también se puede usar en general para seccionar un formulario. Idealmente, si un formulario se alarga mucho , colocar las diferentes secciones relacionadas dentro de diferentes conjuntos de campos mejora su usabilidad.

Proposed exercise: Drink and hamburger

Using the code of the previous example, create a web page to choose the size of both a drink and a hamburger, each one inside a different <fieldset> with the corresponding <legend>. Also, as done before, the user should be able to choose among three different sizes: small, medium and large:

Drink

Small
Medium
Large

Hamburger

Small
Medium
Large

A form with sections

Beyond the structures specific to web forms, it’s good to remember that form markup is just HTML. This means that you can use all the power of HTML to structure a web form. As you can see in the examples, it’s common practice to wrap a label and its widget with a <p> element within. Lists are also recommended for structuring multiple checkboxes or radio buttons.

In addition to the <fieldset> element, it’s also common practice to use HTML titles (e.g. <h1>, <h2>) and sectioning (e.g. <section>) to structure complex forms. Above all, it is up to you to find a comfortable coding style that results in accessible, usable forms. Each separate section of functionality should be contained in a separate <section> element, with <fieldset> elements to contain radio buttons.

Let’s put these ideas into practice and build a slightly more involved form — a payment form. This form will contain more control types than the previous example. Read the descriptions carefully as you follow the below instructions, and start to form an appreciation of which wrapper elements we are using to structure the form, and why.

1. First, we will create the form by adding the outer <form> element:

<form>
    ...
</form>

2. Inside the <form> tags, we will add a heading and paragraph to inform users how required fields are marked:

<form>
  <h1>Payment form</h1>
  <p>Required fields are followed by <strong>*</strong>.</p>
  ...
</form>

3. We’ll also add a simple <button> of type submit, at the bottom of the form, for submitting the form data:

<form>
  <h1>Payment form</h1>
  <p>Required fields are followed by <strong>*</strong>.</p>
  ...
  <p><button type="submit">Validate the payment</button></p>
</form>

4. Next we’ll add a larger section of code into the form, below our previous entry. Here you’ll see that we are wrapping the contact information fields inside a distinct <section> element. Moreover, we have a set of three radio buttons, each of which we are putting in a new line. We also have two standard text <input> and their associated <label> elements, each contained inside a <p>, and a password input for entering a password:

<form>
  <h1>Payment form</h1>
  <p>Required fields are followed by <strong>*</strong>.</p>

  <section><fieldset>
    <legend><h2>Contact information</h2></legend>

    <fieldset>
      <legend>Title</legend>
      <label><input type="radio" name="title" value="mr" />Mr</label><br />
      <label><input type="radio" name="title" value="mrs" />Mrs</label><br />
      <label><input type="radio" name="title" value="miss" />Miss</label><br />
    </fieldset>

    <p><label>Name: <input type="text" name="name" required /> *</label></p>
    <p><label>E-mail: <input type="email" name="email" required /> *</label></p>
    <p><label>Password: <input type="password" name="password" required /> *</label></p>
  </fieldset></section>

  ...

  <p><button type="submit">Validate the payment</button></p>
</form>

5. The second <section> of our form is the payment information. We have three distinct controls along with their labels, each contained inside a <p>. The first is a drop-down menu (<select>) for selecting credit card type. The second is an <input> element of type tel, for entering a credit card number; while we could have used the number type, we don’t want the number’s spinner UI. The last one is an <input> element of type date, for entering the expiration date of the card; this one will come up with a date picker widget in supporting browsers, and fall back to a normal text input in non-supporting browsers.

<form>
  <h1>Payment form</h1>
  <p>Required fields are followed by <strong>*</strong>.</p>

  <section><fieldset>
    <legend><h2>Contact information</h2></legend>
    <fieldset>
      <legend>Title</legend>
      <label><input type="radio" name="title" value="mr" />Mr</label><br />
      <label><input type="radio" name="title" value="mrs" />Mrs</label><br />
      <label><input type="radio" name="title" value="miss" />Miss</label> <br />
    </fieldset>
    <p><label>Name: <input type="text" name="name" required /> *</label></p>
    <p><label>E-mail: <input type="email" name="email" required /> *</label></p>
    <p><label>Password: <input type="password" name="password" required /> *</label></p>
  </fieldset></section>

  <section><fieldset>
    <legend><h2>Payment information</h2></legend>

    <p><label>Card type:
      <select name="card_type">
        <option value="visa">Visa</option>
        <option value="mc">Mastercard</option>
        <option value="amex">American Express</option>
      </select>
    </label></p>

    <p><label>Card number: <input type="tel" name="card_number" required /> *
    </label></p>

    <p><label>Expiration date: <input type="date" name="expiration" required /> *
    </label></p>
  </fieldset></section>

  <p><button type="submit">Validate the payment</button></p>
</form>

Ejercicio propuesto: Formulario de pago

Utilizando el código del ejemplo anterior, crea un formulario de pago más sofisticado. Dentro de la sección «Información de contacto», debes añadir un grupo de botones de opción para que el usuario pueda seleccionar su estado (ya sea «Estudiante», «Profesor» u «Otro») y un nuevo campo de texto para introducir el número de teléfono. Y dentro de la sección «Información de pago» tienes que añadir una nueva casilla de selección para que el usuario pueda elegir el tipo de pago preferido (ya sea «Tarjeta de crédito» o «Paypal») y un nuevo campo de correo electrónico para introducir la cuenta Paypal:

FORMULARIO DE PAGO (Los campos obligatorios se han marcado con *)

Información de contacto

Profesión

Profesor/a
Estudiante
Otro

Tratamiento

Sr/Sra
Dr/Dra
Otro

Nombre: *
Correo: *
Número de teléfono: *
Contraseña: *

Información de pago

Tipo de tarjeta: Visa Mastercard American Express

Número de tarjeta: *
Fecha de caducidad: *

Cuenta de paypal: *

Método de pago preferido: Tarjeta de crédito Paypal

Validar el pago

A real example: search engine forms

Searching for text

Let’s now create a simple form which will provide all necessary data (a simple text) to be passed to some of the most known search engines:

<form action="https://google.com/search" method="GET">
  <label>Google: <input type="text" name="q" required /></label>
  <button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>
...
<form action="https://duckduckgo.com/" method="GET">
  <label>DuckDuckGo: <input type="text" name="q" required /></label>
  <button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>
...
<form action="https://bing.com/search" method="GET">
  <label>Bing: <input type="text" name="q" required /></label>
  <button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>

You will notice that when you press the submit button, the query (q parameter) is included in the url, and this way the search engine will know what to search. For example, if we are searching the word «dogs» on Google, the resulting url when submitting the form will be this one: https://www.google.es/search?q=dog.

Proposed exercise: Text search

Using the example of the form above to search information on Google, DuckDuckGo and Bing, develop a web page similar to the one below to search information on several search engines (at least five).

The only difference from one form to another is the value of the action attribute («https://google.com/search», «https://duckduckgo.com/», «https://bing.com/search», «https://www.ecosia.org/search», «https://search.givewater.com/serp», etc.). This address can be guessed by having a look at the url when you are using each particular search engine.

TEXT SEARCH

Gooogle: Search

DuckDuckGo: Search

Bing: Search

…

Searching for images

Now we will change the code a little bit so that the results provided by the search engines are images instead of text. In some cases we only need to change the action attribute, but sometimes we have to add some additional fields:

<form action="https://google.com/search" method="GET">
  <label>Gooogle: <input type="text" name="q" required /></label>
  <input type="hidden" name="tbm" value="isch" />
  <button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>
...
<form action="https://duckduckgo.com/" method="GET">
  <label>DuckDuckGo: <input type="text" name="q" required /></label>
  <input type="hidden" name="iax" value="images" />
  <input type="hidden" name="ia" value="images" />
  <button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>
...
<form action="https://search.givewater.com/serp" method="GET">
  <label>giveWater: <input type="text" name="q" required /></label>
  <input type="hidden" name="qc" value="images" />
  <button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>

You will notice that when you press the submit button, those hidden fields (which are not entered by the user) are included automatically in the url so that the search engine knows that has to show images instead of text. This way, in this example we are passing two parameters: q (the search string) and tbm (to search for images). For example, if we are searching for images about dogs on Google, the resulting url when submitting the form will be this one: https://www.google.es/search?q=dog&tbm=isch.

Proposed exercise: Image search

Using the code of the previous exercise, develop a new web page to search for images on several search engines (at least five).

To search for images using Bing and Ecosia, you only have to use the right value for the action attribute («https://bing.com/images/search», «https://www.ecosia.org/images»). You only have to use the hidden fields for Google (tbm), DuckDuckGo (iax, ia) and giveWater (qc), as done in the example above. Both the addresses and the hidden fields can be guessed by having a look at the url when you are using each particular search engine.

IMAGE SEARCH

Google: Search

DuckDuckGo: Search

giveWater: Search

…

Choosing between text and image search

Now let’s concentrate on Google’s search engine and let’s go one step forward to add a checkbox to give the user the option to choose between searching for text or images:

<form action="https://google.com/search">
  <label>Google: <input type="text" name="q" required /></label>
  <label>Search for images <input type="checkbox" name="tbm" value="isch" /></label>
  <button>Search</button>
</form>

Proposed exercise: Text or images

Develop a web page to search either text or images on Google and giveWater search engines. You have to provide the user with a checkbox so that can easily change from one type to another:

TEXT SEARCH

Gooogle: Search for images Search

giveWater: Search for images Search

Filtering the results

Finally let’s concentrate again on Google’s search engine to add several controls so that the user can filter the results when searching for images. We will also add a reset button to set the default values:

<form action="https://google.com/search" method="GET">
  <p>Search: <input type="text" name="q" class="big" required /></p>

  <fieldset>
    <legend>Size</legend>
    <select name="tbs"> 
      <option selected disabled>Any size</option>
      <option value="isz:l">Large</option>
      <option value="isz:m">Medium</option>
      <option value="isz:i">Icon</option>
    </select>
  </fieldset>
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Color</legend>        
    <select name="tbs"> 
      <option selected disabled>Any color</option>
      <option value="ic:color">Color</option>
      <option value="ic:gray">Black and white</option>
      <option value="ic:trans">Transparent</option>
   </select>
  </fieldset> 
  <fieldset>       
    <legend>Type</legend>        
    <select name="tbs"> 
      <option selected disabled>Any type</option>
      <option value="itp:clipart">Clip art</option>
      <option value="itp:lineart">Line drawing</option>
      <option value="itp:animated">GIF</option>
    </select>
  </fieldset>  
  <fieldset>     
    <legend>Date</legend>        
    <select name="tbs"> 
      <option selected disabled>Any date</option>
      <option value="qdr:d">Past 24 hours</option>
      <option value="qdr:w">Past week</option>
    </select>
  </fieldset> 
  <fieldset>       
    <legend>License</legend>        
    <select name="tbs"> 
      <option selected disabled>Any license</option>
      <option value="il:cl">Creative commons</option>
      <option value="il:ol">Commercial and other</option>
    </select>
  </fieldset>

  <input type="hidden" name="tbm" value="isch" />

  <button type="reset">Reset</button>
  <button type="submit">Search</button>
</form>

As you will see, we have added many options to set different values for a parameter called «tbs» (we have guessed this parameter and all its possible values by looking at the url when searching for any information on Google). This way, in this example we are passing three parameters: q (the search string), tbm (to search for images) and tbs (to filter the results). For example, if we are searching for GIF images about dogs, the resulting url when submitting the form will be this one: https://www.google.es/search?q=dog&tbm=isch&tbs=itp:animated.

Also you will notice that inside each <select> element we are using a default option: <option selected disabled>...</option> so that by default, none of the available options are selected and the results are not filtered.

Proposed exercise: Filtering images with dropdown boxes

Using the code of the previous example, develop a web page to search for images on Google and filter the results using several dropdown boxes:

Search:

Size

Any size Large Medium Icon

Color

Any color Color Black and white Transparent

Type

Any type Clip art Line drawing GIF

Date

Any date Past 24 hours Past week

License

Any license Creative commons Commercial and other

Reset Search

Proposed exercise: Filtering images with radio buttons

Create a new web page to search for images on Google and filter the results using radio buttons:

Search:

Size

Large
Medium
Icon

Color

Color
Black and white
Transparent

Type

Clip art
Line drawing
GIF

Date

Past 24 hours
Past week

License

Creative commons
Commercial and other

Reset Search