Creating HTML forms

[Trill]

Now that creating our own HTML forms in the headers/footers is allowed (as of the new TOS, I believe?), has anyone really used this to their advantage for things other than a custom login menu?

I've created a feedback board, open to posts by all members, and will be placing different forms/textareas around the site for members to input information. An example of this is for a Translation system, where members will be asked to translate different words/phrases, so I can create skins/threads for multilingual use of the forum. This would probably be a bit complicated, so let's start simple...

Another type of form I'm thinking about is for moderators to log the bans and warnings they issue (as seen in the footer of the following board).

Basically, I copied the HTML for the quick reply, as seen here, in the header. If you post in that textarea, your message is posted in the relevant thread ID as listed in the HTML. Now, just one textarea for the post content message is a bit boring. What else can I do, within the limitations of the ProBoards posting form system, to add more to the posting form?

Back to the example of a 'translate words' form, using the HTML posting form, can I have a set of radio buttons to choose which language the member is translating to, maybe that would be submitted as the post title, or maybe in the post message itself? For example, can this line of the HTML be manipulated to change the title of the reply (using pure HTML, no JS), depending on which radio button was selected:
<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Re: Feedback Form Test"/>

What other types of features are compatible with the ProBoards posting form that can be used when creating our own HTML forms to submit replies to a specific thread?



Edit: Lots of experimenting with the form. I've added radio buttons, check boxes, and text forms.

To choose between two post "titles", I replaced the default subject input code with:

<input type="radio" name="subject" value="Spanish"> Espanol <br />
<input type="radio" name="subject" value="French"> Francias <br />

Basically any form HTML with the name "subject" can be used to put text into the post title.

I've also tried with multiple text lines/text areas, both of which post their content into the post/message area, instead of the subject.

<input type="text" size="20" name="message" value="Enter your one-line text here"/>
<br />
^ One-lined text input area to display first in the post message.

<input type="hidden" name="message" value="[br][br]"/>
^ This puts some space between the two messages to display in the post. Without this, all form content would appear on one line, with no space or line break between the two messages.

<br />
<textarea rows="6" cols="50" name="message" accesskey="q"></textarea>
^ This is the textarea, just like from the standard quick reply area.

[Wormopolis]

best check with an admin before getting too heavily involved with writing codes that changes what information is sent to the server. The login box codes, even when rewritten, still had to follow the same guidelines as to what they sent. you wont be able to send additional information the server isnt looking for. you could get away with adding new elements into the form, but their value would have to be included into the message itself somehow.

[Trill]

Thanks for the advice, Wormo. Basically, the only information the form is sending to the server is to put text into the post's subject and message:

name="subject"
name="message"

Essentially, I guess I'm just rewriting the quick reply box with all the same elements, no new input names at all. I'm just modifying the look of the page with different types for form input areas.

[Wormopolis]

Its a great idea! I just wanted to make sure you understood some of the cautionary stuff before you went and wrote out a really complex code only to have a red name declare it was prohibited.