Working with Forms Working with Form Objects Building a Jump Menu Navigation If you've used websites such as Amazon, Yahoo, Google, MSN, ETrade Financial, and eBay, chances are you've used and interacted with forms and may or may not have even known it. Forms are everywhere on the web, and once you know what to look for, they're hard to ignore. Furthermore, they push development to a higher level and begin an interaction with the client or end user. Whether it's through registration forms, mailing lists, site searches, or online ordering, forms facilitate interaction between us as developers and our end users. Forms allow us to be "connected" with our end users by serving as a stepping stone to a whole new medium known as Web Application Development. Covered with more detail in Part V, "Dynamic Web Page Development," Web Application Development, an extremely broad and extensive topic, begins with forms. As you have done for the rest of the chapters in this book, you can work with the examples in this chapter by downloading the files from www.dreamweaverunleashed.com. You'll want to save the files for Chapter 9 in an easy-to-find location. I'll place mine in C:\Dorknozzle\Chapter09.             An Introduction to HTML Forms As I've just mentioned, forms are everywhere on the web. They allow us as developers to collect and ultimately process data from our end users. Let's take eBay as an example. As a buyer, you visit eBay in an attempt to find a sweet deal on something you probably don't need. When you visit eBay, you don't verbally tell eBay to find an item; instead, you interact with a form containing form objects in the shape of a search text box and a search button (see Figure 9.1). Figure 9.1. eBay uses forms and form objects to collect a user's search criteria. [View full size image]   You enter your search criteria into the text box, click the search button, and magically the results are returned in a clean list format through which you can quickly browse. From a development standpoint, eBay uses forms and form objects to facilitate the interaction between the end user and eBay. From a design standpoint, forms and form objects make it easy for the user to enter the criteria about which he wants more information. As a buyer, you might be familiar with this process. It's straightforward, easy to use, and more importantly, intuitive.