A Users Experience

"I've now got everything as I want it on my site and the Form1 page is working well and is far easier to handle than previous software - the ability to use the 'reply' button for responses to enquiries coming via the site being one of the major advantages."

Form Creation and Editing Software

by Jeremy Lawrence - February 2004

New users' operating procedure for use of following web development software to create a form, edit the html content via a wysiwyg editor (if you are not too hot at html), re-format as php and upload it to server:

Form1 Builder

HTML-Kit

WYSIWYG Web Page Editor

Reasons for procedure:

First, you should check with your ISP that your server account is or can be configured to handle php.

Form1 is a Form development application by www.softswot.com which runs on your PC but the resultant form will only work on a server. Form1 uses php file extensions/codes to make it work on the web. Php codes can be corrupted by some html editors, so files with php extensions MUST only be opened in HTML-Kit or Notepad to avoid this.

This means that a wysiwyg editor such as Namo/Macromedia can not be used to edit html code on a page(s) which also contains php code. To use a wysiwyg editor to massage and adjust the Form, therefore, the php and html codes first have to be developed separately and and then edited separately by:

• First creating the required form on Form1 Build, saving separately to txt, html and to php format as per the Form1 instructions and
• Developing the supporting html freshly or using/modifying existing html documents (web pages) on a wysiwyg editor
• Transferring (copy/paste) the separately developed codes to Notepad or HTML-Kit in order to conjoin them in to one page of php/html which is saved as php - that is, if one page is what is required.

The sequence employed to achieve this is as follows:

1. Develop the basic web form with Form1 Builder and using Notepad, save as 1. txt and 2. html and 3. php files. Keep the txt file aside for when you may need it as backup or re-starting your design.
2. Open or develop your master page template in a wysiwyg editor and edit/adjust as required and then paste the html part only (as 1 above) in to a new layer on MASTER page template and when satisfied with the wysiwyg preview, save again as html. In HTML-Kit or Notepad open php file saved (as 1 above) and using copy/paste, paste the edited html (master page) document below the "*/?>" symbol and then save resultant combined document with php extension. Open resulting php in HTML-Kit or Notepad and make whatever minor changes required to the php or html codes as per Form1 instructions.
3. Do NOT subsequently re-open your completed php document in any editor other than HTML-Kit or Notepad.
4. An aid to doing all this is to create identical sets of php and html files in duplicate with different names. These files can be used to store or back up all the php and html as separate documents, until one set of the separately edited html and php codes are conjoined in HTML-Kit via copy/paste and saved together in the same document as a file(s) with php extension.
5. The resulting combination of - at the top php codes and underneath html codes - saved as a php file, can then be uploaded to the server and tested for functionality.
6. If the finalized separate txt, php and html files are retained on the PC, they can be re-utilized later to (separately) edit both php and html elements of the web page(s) by reversing the above procedures, remembering that only the html element must be opened in the wysiwyg editor.

HTML-Kit can be downloaded free from the web at www.chami.com.