Creating custom forms with the cfform tag
The cfform tag and its CFML subtags let you create dynamic forms in three formats:
HTML: Generates standard HTML tags wherever possible, and uses applets or Flash for more complex controls, such as grids, trees, and calendars. HTML format lets you present a familiar appearance, but does not let you easily separate data and presentation, or provide some of the more complex structures, such as Flash tabbed navigators or accordions, or customized XML controls.
Flash: Presents a modern, visually pleasing appearance. Flash format supports several controls, such as tabbed navigators and accordions, that are not available in HTML format. Flash forms are also browser-independent. In Flash format, Flash Player works in all commonly used browsers on Windows and Macintosh systems, and in Netscape and Mozilla on Linux.
XML: Lets you specify an Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) skin that converts the XML into styled HTML output. ColdFusion provides several skins that you can use, and you can write your own custom skins and support custom controls.
The cfform tag and its subtags also provide you with several methods for validating input data. For example, you can perform the validation on the browser or on the server. You can check the data type, or you can mask data input.
Individual cfform tags have additional dynamic features. Several of the tags do not have HTML counterparts, and others directly support dynamically populating the control from data sources. Also, the cfform tag preservedata attribute retains user input in a form after the user submits the form, so the data reappears if the form gets redisplayed.
This chapter describes features of the cfform tag and focuses on using several of the cfform child tags that do not have HTML counterparts. The following chapters describe other features of ColdFusion forms that you create using the cfform tag: