HTML and CSS — Building Forms

Reset and Submit Buttons

The controls for reset and submit functions are built right into HTML, so you don't have to do much to get these working and even customized to a certain degree without ever touching images or style.

The reset button clears the form when it is clicked. The submit button submits the data in the form, which uses the information in the method and action attributes in the form element itself to send the data to the server for processing.

Example 5-11 shows how to create reset and submit buttons.

Example 5-11. Creating reset and submit buttons

<form method="get" action="http://www.myserver.com/cgi-bin/mailscript/">

<input type="reset" value="reset" />
<input type="submit" value="submit" />

</form>

Figure 5-12 shows how the value attribute determines the information that appears within the buttons.

Figure 5-12. Reset and submit buttons are created automatically.

Because you can alter the values for the form buttons, you can customize them a bit in terms of what you'd like them to say (see Figure 5-13).

Figure 5-13. Customizing reset and submit buttons.