DIV/Inline Frame/Form Question

Hey Guys,

I'm putting together an automated form that will record user entries and mail them to a specified email address once the user has completed the fields. The form is long enough to where it needs two pages of space for all the fields.

The first page will contain contact info etc.
The second page will contain the specifics regarding the users request for info.

I'm not good at handling perl/cgi etc let alone passing variables between pages.

I was thinking about setting up an inline frame with an html document that is larger then the frame's screen area, then using an anchor link from the first "submit" button to the top of the second area of the html document which would contain the second part of questions, and the real submit button that would mail all the info together.

However this seems like bad coding and I was wondering if anyone knew of a better way to collect form data from 2 "pages" without sending two emails or intricate variable passing?

Thanks in advance.

This is more of server-side question than an HTML/CSS question. There may be an easier way to do it with PHP than with Perl/CGI, but that's something the server-side guys can respond to more authoritatively. Ask a mod to move your post over there.

That said, I can tell you that iframes are generally more trouble than they're worth. They won't validate with a strict DOCTYPE (the only way to code, IMHO), and the same issues (http://godbit.com/article/why-are-frames-bad) that arise with "conventional" frames afflict them as well.

Can't you just group the related items into some field sets like http://www.alistapart.com/d/prettyaccessibleforms/example_3/ and then make a two column layout to include all of them in a single page?

Thanks for the advice :

If any mods are reading this it would be appreciated if this topic was moved.

As for splitting them into 2 columns on the same page, I appreciate the advice but the reason for splitting the forms to two pages is so that the fields don't overwhelm the user - something that we're worried about if we have both sets display together.

So kind of like what this guy does. He essentially is using anchors to get to the rest of the parts of his site.

http://www.arthsu.net/portfolio/

So kind of like what this guy does. He essentially is using anchors to get to the rest of the parts of his site.

http://www.arthsu.net/portfolio/

Exactly, just without the fancy slide effect. I've yet to really think of an alternative that doesn't involve two separate forms or passing info.