1. Semantic Horizontal Form

This form is coded in a semantic way and the elements are positioned next to eachother except for the last fieldset which spans the full width of the form below the 3 top fieldsets. It’s been tested in FF1.x, IE6 and Opera8. (looks a little quirky in IE5.x but still usable)

2. Nice Forms

A great form, with graphical elements and colour to create a different and unique look. All done with CSS and semantic coding.

3. StylePhreak Simple CSS Form

A simple form with regular alignment and unique lines to break up the different sections. This works well as a great base to start your own custom form from.

4. Veerle’s Blue CSS Form

A simple blue form with rounded background corners, all styled in CSS and XHTML. The layout is pixel perfect, and the images can be customized to match your own requirements.

5. Who Says CSS Forms Can’t Be Pretty?

A unique form with soft background images to complement the fields. It highlights many form possibilities, including a pop-up calendar for choosing a date. A related tutorial also accompanies the example.

5. Man in Blue: Form Examples

Here I’ve made each fieldset extend the full width of the page. The main styling that’s going on is the positioning of the form elements within the fieldsets. Because each element is contained inside a label tag, you can just float labels left, give them a bit of margin, and they line up horizontally (moving to the next line if there’s not enough width).

6. CSS Play – A Form with Style

Forms are not very friendly when it comes to CSS and each browser has its own way of handling them. Styles that work in one browser will not work in another, so depending on which browser you are using you will see a slightly different interpretation.

7. The Form Garden

This is a generic web form containing all the different fields and layouts available in FormAssembly.com. Use this form to make sure your theme works well with any type of web form.

8. Prettier Accessible Forms

The most important part of a form is the HTML we use to build it. Fortunately, HTML gives us a nice assortment of tags to build our forms in an accessible way. These are fieldset, legend, and label.

9. HTML Form Effects with CSS

For this tutorial you should already be familiar with HTML forms and the various elements and attributes. You should also have a basic understanding of Cascading Stylesheets (CSS)

10. A 2 Column CSS Form Layout

Websites have become less accessible and more complex over time according to recent studies. Learn how to buck the trend by creating fast, accessible CSS forms that work with modern browsers and gracefully degrade.

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How to turn the feature on

Using the following code for a form will cause the enhanced search field to display in Safari:

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<form action="form.php" method="post">
<input type="search" name="search"
autosave="mysite-autosave" results="10" /> 
<input type="submit" value="Search" />
</form>

The type="search" tells safari to use the field as a search box, and the autosave="mysite-autosave" results="10" sets additional features about the recent search information.

The downsides

The negative aspect of adding this feature is that your code won’t validate. It’s up to you to decide whether it is a acceptable down-side of improving the browsing experience for those using Safari. We think it is – and you’ll see the enhanced search field on Design Shack!

Simple Contact Form

Providing your web host supports PHP, you just need to follow our example below to email the contents of a form to yourself. Firstly, this is the HTML code to put on your page:

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<form action="submit.php" method="get">
   Name: <input type="text" name="name" /><br />
   Email Address: <input type="text" name="email" /><br />
   Message: <textarea name="message"></textarea><br />
   <input type="submit" value="Send Form" />
</form>

This will result in a form which looks similar to the following:

So you’re able to collect the data. Now to explain how to email it. To do this, you need to make a file called submit.php and put it in the same folder as your HTML file. It’s quite complicated to go into exactly how this works, but if you copy and paste the following code it should work fine:

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<?php
$subject = "Website Message";
$message = "Someone sent you a message from your website:
Name: $name
Email: $email
Message: $message";
$youremail = "me@mywebsite.com";
mail($youremail,$subject,$message,"From: $email");
echo 'Thankyou for filling in a form!';
?>

All you need to do is change me@mywebsite.com to your actual email address. You’ll be receiving form submissions from your website in no time!

Other Form Options

HTML doesn’t just use text fields for collecting information. You also have the option to use checkboxes, radio buttons and drop down lists. Feel free to take and use the examples below:

Radio Buttons

These allow you to enforce that the visitor only makes one choice, unlike checkboxes which allow you to select multiple answers/settings. They look something like:

The code you use to create the above is:

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<input name="favouritecolor" type="radio" value="red" /> Red
<input name="favouritecolor" type="radio" value="blue" /> Blue
<input name="favouritecolor" type="radio" value="yellow" /> Yellow

Checkboxes

Several checkboxes can be ticked, allowing multiple selections. It is as simple as changing the word radio above to say checkbox:

The code you use to create the above is:

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<input name="favouritecolor" type="checkbox" value="red" /> Red
<input name="favouritecolor" type="checkbox" value="blue" /> Blue
<input name="favouritecolor" type="checkbox" value="yellow" /> Yellow

Drop Down Boxes

Drop down boxes work in a similar way to radio buttons, allowing the user to select one option. However, they save a great deal of space if you are dealing with a long list – selecting your country for example:

The code you use to create the above is:

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<select name="favouritecolor">
<option value="red">Red</option>
<option value="blue">Blue</option>
<option value="yellow">Yellow</option>
<option value="green">Green</option>
<option value="pink">Pink</option>
</select>