Creating, Styling, and Validating Web Forms (WFM101)

This course offers a comprehensive guide to working with HTML forms, from creating and styling forms to validating user input using JavaScript and server-side technologies. It is ideal for web developers who want to gain a deep understanding of form handling and validation in both client-side and server-side contexts.

The course begins with an introduction to HTML Forms, covering the basics of how forms work, the form element, and various form elements like buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, select menus, and textareas. You'll learn how to create a registration form and enhance your forms with fieldsets for better organization. Practical exercises will help you apply these concepts, and you'll also explore how to style forms with CSS to improve their appearance.

In the JavaScript Form Validation module, you'll learn the difference between server-side and client-side form validation. The focus will be on using JavaScript to validate form data, including checking the validity of email and URL fields, and handling validation on input and submit events. You'll also learn how to add error messages and validate various form elements like textareas, checkboxes, radio buttons, and select menus. Practical exercises, such as validating an ice cream order form, will give you hands-on experience.

The Styling Forms with CSS section dives into techniques for enhancing the look and feel of your forms. You'll learn about general form layout, applying pseudo-classes to form fields, and styling specific elements like radio buttons, checkboxes, and fieldsets. Exercises will help you put these styling techniques into practice.

The Regular Expressions module introduces you to the powerful tool of regular expressions, which are used for pattern matching within strings. You'll learn the syntax of regular expressions, how to use backreferences, and how to apply regular expressions to form validation. This section also covers cleaning up form entries and includes exercises to help you master these techniques.

Next, you'll explore Node.js and Server-side Form Validation. This section introduces server-side programming, starting with the basics of Node.js and setting up a simple web application. You'll learn about processing forms on the server, performing validation using Node.js and the Express framework, and handling Ajax requests for asynchronous form validation. Exercises will guide you through creating and validating forms on the server side.

The course concludes with a module on JSON, where you'll learn about JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), a lightweight data-interchange format that is easy for humans to read and write, and easy for machines to parse and generate. You'll review object literals and work with JSON in the context of form data, with exercises to reinforce your understanding.

By the end of this course, you'll have the skills to create, style, and validate forms using both client-side and server-side techniques, ensuring that your web applications handle user input securely and effectively. You'll also gain a solid understanding of JSON, enabling you to work with data in a structured and efficient way.