Question about structure of XHTML

Hello,

I was pondering creating form filling software. As a sample I decided
to take a look at
the sign up page for hotmail (http://get.live.com/mail/overview then
Signup)
Probably not the best example as it looks quite complicated.
My main question is, when you have filled in the fields etc. and
click I Accept, where
is the form actually submitted?

I'm guessing it is submitted via javascript, either
https://signup.live.com/scripts/liveframework.js?nx=11.0.382 8.0
or https://signup.live.com/scripts/omnitureH2.js?nx=11.0.3828.0 at the
bottom. Presumably the parameters collected in the fielda are
submitted somehow? I don't really understand how the field inputs are
passed as it doesn't seem particularly obvious. Also, I see no
reference to tags, are these ASP specific or some such?


Thanks,

Gordy.

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

On May 26, 10:23 pm, gordon.is.a.mo...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I was pondering creating form filling software. As a sample I decided
> to take a look at
> the sign up page for hotmail (http://get.live.com/mail/overview then
> Signup)
> Probably not the best example as it looks quite complicated.
> My main question is, when you have filled in the fields etc. and
> click I Accept, where
> is the form actually submitted?
>
> I'm guessing it is submitted via javascript, eitherhttps://signup.live.com/scripts/liveframework.js?nx=11 .0.3828.0
> orhttps://signup.live.com/scripts/omnitureH2.js?nx=11.0.3828 .0at the
> bottom. Presumably the parameters collected in the fielda are
> submitted somehow? I don't really understand how the field inputs are
> passed as it doesn't seem particularly obvious. Also, I see no
> reference to tags, are these ASP specific or some such?


Your example likely uses a lot of Microsoftese code, and I would not
use it as a good example for making your own page. But everyone to
their own taste.

Often a lot of server side code is used that can not be seen in the
source code you can see when viewing the page on a browser. I will
give you one example of this. See my perpetual calendar at
http://www.cwdjr.net/calendar2/perpetual_calendar.php . The source
code is very short and simple. No script is used, and a simple form is
used to submit the year you wish. This goes to a php page on the
server that is very long and which you do not see. When it receives
the year requested, all hell breaks loose. First the year is examined
to see if it is in the range you were told to use. If not, you get an
insult from a parrot rather than a calendar. If the year is within
range, the calendar is calculated along with the css to format the
calendar. Then the finished calendar is downloaded to the viewing
browser. This calendar can be calculated locally on the browser using
an extremely long javascript. However javascript may be turned off by
the viewer, but the viewer can not turn off the php script on the
server.

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

gordon.is.a.moron@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I was pondering creating form filling software. As a sample I decided
> to take a look at
> the sign up page for hotmail (http://get.live.com/mail/overview then
> Signup)
> Probably not the best example as it looks quite complicated.
> My main question is, when you have filled in the fields etc. and
> click I Accept, where
> is the form actually submitted?
>
> I'm guessing it is submitted via javascript, either
> https://signup.live.com/scripts/liveframework.js?nx=11.0.382 8.0
> or https://signup.live.com/scripts/omnitureH2.js?nx=11.0.3828.0 at the
> bottom. Presumably the parameters collected in the fielda are
> submitted somehow? I don't really understand how the field inputs are
> passed as it doesn't seem particularly obvious. Also, I see no
> reference to tags, are these ASP specific or some such?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gordy.
>

Hi

As cwdjrxyz explained, the Hotmail signup page is full of Microsoft crap
and not a good starting point for understanding forms. Besides, that
page has a XHTML 1.0 Strict doctype but the code is nothing like XHTML
Strict, so it's simply chocful of validation errors.

To get to grips with forms, you really need to have some knowledge of
server-side scripting. PHP, a server-side scripting language, is both
popular and easy to learn. After a bit of practice, you'll be amazed how
easy it is to set up forms and then process the data with PHP.

To learn PHP, you can install Apache and PHP on your computer and then
tweak the config files to get them to work together. It's not hard, and
both are available for Windows.

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

gordon.is.a.moron@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I was pondering creating form filling software.

You will need to process the form on the server. This page has a good,
secure form script written in Perl.

http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/scripts.shtml

Now what you need to do is learn how to create the form in HTML.

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed gordon.is.a.moron@gmail.com
writing in news:1180236207.767009.271570@g37g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

>
>
> Hello,
>
> I was pondering creating form filling software. As a sample I decided
> to take a look at
> the sign up page for hotmail (http://get.live.com/mail/overview then
> Signup)
> Probably not the best example as it looks quite complicated.
> My main question is, when you have filled in the fields etc. and
> click I Accept, where
> is the form actually submitted?
>

This may be of interest to you
. It's a form I made
as an example of how to process a simple contact form in ASP classic. It
uses CSS to format the form, and to show the user if a required field is
missing. Full source for the markup and server side as well. Enjoy!


--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

On May 28, 9:02 am, Adrienne Boswell wrote:
> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed gordon.is.a.mo...@gmail.com
> writing innews:1180236207.767009.271570@g37g2000prf.googlegroups.com :
>
>
>
> > Hello,
>
> > I was pondering creating form filling software. As a sample I decided
> > to take a look at
> > the sign up page for hotmail (http://get.live.com/mail/overview then
> > Signup)
> > Probably not the best example as it looks quite complicated.
> > My main question is, when you have filled in the fields etc. and
> > click I Accept, where
> > is the form actually submitted?
>
> This may be of interest to you
> . It's a form I made
> as an example of how to process a simple contact form in ASP classic. It
> uses CSS to format the form, and to show the user if a required field is
> missing. Full source for the markup and server side as well. Enjoy!
>
> --
> Adrienne Boswell at Home
> Arbpen Web Site Design Serviceshttp://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
> Please respond to the group so others can share

Thanks everyone. The links will come in handy. I should explain,
I want my software to fill in a form on a page which is not under my
control.
So running a server side script is not an option. I was looking more
towards
interpreting the page somehow and then filling in the fields. As I
know
the structure of the page (i.e. they are fairly static) it may be
possible.
One worry though is the log in aspect, I suspect it will log me out
all the time unless I handle cookies etc. And then there's the
javascript...

Anyway you gave me some good pointers, thanks.

Gordy

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

gordon.is.a.moron@gmail.com wrote:

> Thanks everyone. The links will come in handy. I should explain, I
> want my software to fill in a form on a page which is not under my
> control.

You will have no choice but to write a script. It may run on a web
server or locally.

> So running a server side script is not an option.

It may be your only option.

> I was looking more towards interpreting the page somehow and then
> filling in the fields.

Perl has tools that will do that. I imagine PHP does as well.

You can look here, but you would need to know Perl to make use of it.

http://search.cpan.org/~petdance/WWW-Mechanize-1.24/lib/WWW/ Mechanize.pm


> One worry though is the log in aspect, I suspect it will log me out
> all the time unless I handle cookies etc.

www::mechanize can handle cookies.

> And then there's the javascript...

If the page you are trying to interpret requires Javascript, you may not
be able to do what you want to do.

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

On Sun, 27 May 2007 09:20:22 +0100, JD wrote:

>gordon.is.a.moron@gmail.com wrote:

>To learn PHP, you can install Apache and PHP on your computer and then
>tweak the config files to get them to work together. It's not hard, and
>both are available for Windows.

I'll second that. Have a look at Netserver
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/netserver/) for a completely painless
setup.
--
Brendan Gillatt
www.brendangillatt.co.uk
GPG: 0x6E265E61

Re: Question about structure of XHTML

On May 30, 4:49 am, Brendan Gillatt
wrote:
> On Sun, 27 May 2007 09:20:22 +0100, JD wrote:
> >gordon.is.a.mo...@gmail.com wrote:
> >To learn PHP, you can install Apache and PHP on your computer and then
> >tweak the config files to get them to work together. It's not hard, and
> >both are available for Windows.
>
> I'll second that. Have a look at Netserver
> (http://sourceforge.net/projects/netserver/) for a completely painless
> setup.
> --
> Brendan Gillattwww.brendangillatt.co.uk
> GPG: 0x6E265E61

Thanks Scott and Brendan. I'll look into these.

Regards,

Gordy