Chapter 3: HTML Forms and Client-Side JavaScript

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The purpose of this chapter is to continue with HTML, focusing on forms, and to introduce client-side scripting, using JavaScript. Most of the rest of the text is concerned with server-side scripting. JavaScript will be shown in use with ASP; the PHP system has its own scripting language.

Background

The HTML tags introduced in the last chapter provide you ways to present information to your audience that does not change. The next steps are to learn how to gather information from the audience viewing your Web pages and how to use a scripting language, JavaScript, to make the pages dynamic. We will describe these two topics separately and then together.

In this chapter, we will show you how to design Web pages that go beyond showing information using HTML forms and client-side JavaScript. Much of what you learn and use for client-side scripting will apply to server-side scripting and programming in general.