About the Form Web Part

You can use the Form Web Part to connect to and filter a column of data in another Web Part. Both Web Parts must run on the site server.

You might use the Form Web Part in the following ways:

Filter all employees with the same last name in a List View Web Part containing employee data.
Customize the Form Web Part by adding radio buttons (option buttons), checkboxes, and text boxes with default values to filter a List View Web Part containing product information.

To use the Form Web Part, you connect it with another Web Part capable of filtering through a Web Part connection, such as the List View Web Part, by selecting the Provide Form Value To command from the Connections submenu on the Web Part menu. You can connect the Form Web Part to one or more Web Parts on the Web Part Page.

After connecting the Form Web Part to another Web Part, you can type text in the text box, click Go or press ENTER, and the other Web Part can display data that matches the text you typed.

To clear the text box and type new text, select the current text, and then delete it.

You can modify the Form Web Part by using either the Source Editor custom property or an HTML editor compatible with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, such as Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003.

You might want to enhance the Form Web Part by adding other form elements, such as radio buttons (option buttons), checkboxes, default values, and list boxes, or create forms with several fields to combine criteria and pass more complex filters to the other Web Part. Once you have modified the Form Web Part, you can create another instance of it and add it to a Web Part Gallery on your site.

If you customize the Form Web Part, keep in mind the following important points:

Only one Go button (which uses the HTML element, <INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT/>) can be used to pass data to the other Web Part.
The Form Web Part uses the HTML <FORM> element. Certain HTML elements cannot be used inside a <FORM> element including <HTML>, <BODY>, and <FORM>.
All form field names must be unique. Each name value is used to connect to a corresponding column name in the Web Part you are connecting to.

You can only use use the following <FORM> controls and they pass the following values to the other Web Part:

Control	HTML element	Value passed
Text Box.	<INPUT TYPE=”text”>	The VALUE attribute
Text Area	<TEXTAREA>	The VALUE attribute
Check Box	<INPUT TYPE=”checkbox”	The VALUE attribute if checked; the string, "off", if unchecked.
Radio (Option) Button	<INPUT TYPE=”radio”>	The VALUE attribute if checked; the string, "off", if unchecked.
Dropdown Box	<SELECT>	A comma delimited string of the VALUE attributes of the selected options; the string, "off", if no selection. For example, if “chairs” and “tables” are selected, the VALUE attributes is "chairs,tables".

Note The Form Web Part only provides data to another connectable Web Part, it cannot get data from another connectable Web Part. You cannot use the Form Web Part, for example, as a detail form to display a row of data.