client side form validation

The more we learn the more fun we have. Take for example the simple process of validating a form. We can save the user a lot of time validating the form on the client side and still do it without those annoying alerts that pop up with a loud DING! It is rather easy with the help of a little javascript.

Now depending on what type of data you are passing to the server with your form, you will often need to also validate your fields data on the server too. This tutorial will only look at the client side validation, leaving server side validation to another tutorial at some other time.

Lets first start with our form. We are going to do a simple form that just asks for name, email address, optional phone number, a select list for subject and text area for message. Oh, I always forget, we need a submit and clear button too. Lets start it all of with our form tag.