its Action to Reset Form in the Properties Inspector. When you finish, the form should resemble Figure 9.14. Figure 9.14. Insert a Reset Button form object. [View full size image]   Test the Form The form is taking shape nicely and is now ready for testing within the browser. To see how users will interact with your form, save your work and preview the page in the browser. When the page appears, fill out the form objects, entering text into the Text Fields, picking options from the Checkboxes and Radio Buttons, and making selections from the Drop Down Menu and Listbox. When you finish, click the Submit button. If you typed the path to the processing application correctly in the Action text box for the form, the page should clear itself of the form objects and display what your selections and entries were. At first glance, it may seem confusing as to what happened. The process of sending form information to the server for processing will be cleared up in Part V, "Dynamic Web Page Creation," but for now, we can cover the process at a basic level. As mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, forms exist as a way for organizations to collect information from their end users (clients). By clicking the Submit button, the user can send the form and its form object values to an application (server), defined in the form's Action field, for processing. A visual representation of this process is shown in Figure 9.15. Figure 9.15. The form and form object values are sent to the server-side application for processing. [View full size image]   This approach, also known as client-server architecture, is central to the way thousands of organizations (also known as application service providers) do business on the web. In our scenario, the helpdesk.htm form page, which is what the client interacts with, is what you've just created. The application, helpdesk.asp, has already been created and resides on the server (www.dreamweaverunleashed.com). The application's sole purpose is to collect the values in the form objects and redisplay them in the client's browser in a readable format. As you'll learn in Part V, these applications can get much more complex than the simple example presented here. For now, this should give you an idea about the role of forms and form objects. Image Field The drawback to using form buttons is that they all look alike. The only way to differentiate form buttons is by their text labels. Although you can create CSS styles to reformat the look of form objects, including buttons, there is quicker way in the Image Field form object. The Image Field form object, which is essentially an image you create and add into Dreamweaver, is treated just as a Submit Button form object would be but is customizable based on your design standards. To add an Image Field form object to the page, follow these steps: 1. Select and remove the Submit and Reset buttons located in the ninth cell of the second column. 2. Click the Image Field icon located in the Insert bar (the fifth icon from the right). The Select Image Source dialog appears. 3. Browse to the Images folder of the project, select the imagefield_submit.gif image, and click OK. The image appears in the cell similar to Figure 9.16. Figure 9.16. The Image Field form object displays a custom image but is treated as a Submit Button form object. [View full size image]