Introduction to HTML Forms

Every search box, login screen and checkout page on the web is built on the same element. It is called <form>, and its job is to collect what a visitor types or chooses and send it to a place that can use it.

All the pages in the earlier chapters sent information in one direction only: from the website to the reader. A form reverses that direction. The browser draws the boxes, buttons and menus, and the visitor fills them in. When the visitor presses the button, the browser packages the answers and sends them to a web server, where a program stores them, checks them or answers them