This course is designed for those with experience in creating Web pages. If you have attended WD201, this will be a partial review and an in-depth look at additional capabilities and features of CGI programs. No programming experience is needed.
Monday
- Static vs. Dynamic Information
- How CGI Works
- Examples of Scripts without User Input
- Forms and Form Elements
- Textboxes
- Radio buttons
- Checkboxes
- Select fields
- Textareas
- Submit and Reset buttons
- Form Layout
- Usability
- Tables
- Fieldsets and Legends
- How data is sent to the server
- Processing form data
- Perl Overview
- Customized Response - A key to keeping visitors "engaged"
- Examples
- Comments Forms
- Customized Response
- Sending Email
- Self-modifying pages (Guestbooks)
- Shopping Carts
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Lab #1:
Attendees will modify existing "comments page" script to generated customized response based on users' rating of site (using radio buttons). - Common CGI libraries
- cgi-lib.pl
- cgi.pm
Tuesday
- Platform differences
- Setting and retrieving Cookies
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Lab #2:
The script will be modified to use cookies to remember how the user rated the site on the previous visit and comment on any change in rating. - Database connectivity
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Lab #3:
The final lab session will involve working with a "shopping cart" script which uses hidden fields to store the visitor's selections. The catalog will be dynamically created from a flat file of product information.
