When it comes to validating user-input into HTML forms, there are several options. The Validation Toolkit Dreamweaver extension makes both client-side and server-side form validation a snap.
If you’ve ever inserted a form into a web page, you understand the importance of form validation. If your form is even a simple contact form, it will only be a matter of time before you begin to get spam submissions for Viagra, Cialis, or whatever else is the current trend in pharmaceutical spam.
Form validation requires the user input to match a specified criteria before the form can be submitted. Common validations include required a valid e-mail address, a valid credit card number, valid website URL and more. There are two ways to accomplish form validation, client-side and server-side.
Client-side form validation inserts the validation script into the web page, therefore required no action on the host server to validate the input. Server-side validation rests on the server itself and is processed at the time the form is submitted. There are pros and cons for both methods, but whichever way you go, WebAssist’s Validation Toolkit can handle the task through a simple Dreamweaver wizard.
Validation Toolkit makes the form validation process extremely simple and quick. Simply apply either the client-side or server-side behavior to a page with a form, and the appropriate wizard will take you through the steps to validate your form fields.
Validation Toolkit gives you the option to configure the error message header and footer, so you can give the user more input on how they need to correctly enter the information into the form. Every field on the form can be validated against the following validation types:
- Alphanumeric
- Credit Card
- Date/Time
- Entry Length
- File Extension
- Like Entry
- Number
- Phone Number
- Regular Expression
- Required
- Restrict Content
- Social Security
- URL
- Zip Code
For each field that requires validation, you have the options of how the field is formatted. You can choose to allow upper-case letters, allow lower-case letters, allow numbers, allow space or any other characters. Each field gets a custom error message to inform the user of the specific problem with their input. You can also choose whether or not to allow blank entries into form fields. The wizard gives you full control of the validation process, so when there is an error with the form input, you can continue validating the rest of the form, stop the validation or continue validating the rest of the form with the exception of the invalid form field.
Each validation parameter gives you a custom set of options to validate against. For example, if you want to validate a credit card number, you will be asked which types of credit cards to allow such as Visa, Mastercard, Discover, etc. If you are validating a file extension, you can specify .gif, .jpg, .pdf, or any other file type. Phone number validation can allow for international numbers as well as require area codes. Zip code validation options include 5 digit U.S, 9 digit U.S., 6 digit Canadian and UK postal codes. There are many more options included in the specific validation types which give you ultimate control over the use of your web forms.
We’ve all entered data on web forms, pressed submit and had the form validation wipe out all the data in the form. Or we’ve pressed the browser back button only to discover our form data was gone. The Validation Toolkit saves your user’s time by retaining all entered form data. Even when they revisit the page through their back button, the data will be there!
If you do any kind of forms in your website, you need the Validation Toolkit from WebAssist. The ability to reduce spam submissions alone is worth the price of the extension.