Web objects include visual objects on the screen that can be manipulated with the mouse and keyboard. These Web objects, also known as Web Widgets, are small applications that run in the user's browser and enrich your Web pages with functionality, useful information and can be immensely entertaining!

The FGD Web objects come as portable embeddable (do not require plug-ins to play) chunks of code written in PHP, Javascript and DHTML . Do not worry -- each snippet of code comes with a step-by-step guide instruction on how to implement them into your Web pages.

The FGD Web objects will help enhance your Website visitors experience and encourage them to return again and again! You will see many of the Web objects listed below, being put to good use in this site.

The FGD Web objects are listed below.

PHP
Tell a friend (basic)	Tell a friend	Contact Form (basic)
Contact Form
Javascript
Tell a friend	Hit Counter	Site Search
Mailing List	Password Protect	Guestbook
Bookmark this page

If you come across a Web Object that that you think is particularly good, please contact me so that I can list it on this site.

Any Web page that uses PHP script must be saved as a PHP page (for example, filename.php). For a PHP Web object to work, the server where it resides must be PHP enabled. This is also true of your testing server if it is locally situated on your PC. To find out more about PHP (and MySQL), including how to set up an IIS (Internet Information Services) testing server (Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista) that is PHP enabled; see this tutorial How to install PHP and MySQL on IIS. Another popular testing server is Apache and a tutorial for setting up PHP on this server is How to Install and Configure PHP4 to Run with Apache 1.x on Windows. The tutorial on how to install PHP on IIS is the one I used when I first started dabbling with PHP. I found it to be informative and easy to follow. For me, the hardest part of setting up PHP was configuring the PHP.ini file -- a tad tricky.

I would like to hear how you get on with these tutorials. A useful characteristic of PHP (from the perspective of a Web designer) is that all standard browsers support it. The PHP objects available from this page are created using vey basic simple scripts and therefore, do not have security measures built into them.

	Tell a friend (basic) Tell a friend is an extremely efficient marketing strategy in all forms of business. This is especially true for the web, where trust levels can be very low with new visitors. Referring a site to a friend is an extremely powerful way of gaining not only new visitors to your site, but more confident customers to your site. In this environment, a referral from a trusted source can make all the difference in converting a visitor into a customer. Research has shown that 'Tell a friend' can bring the best source of traffic to your website because a referral adds real credibility to your sit and consequently, your business. A recent study showed that more than half (53%) of Internet users visited websites that were referred by people they know. (eMarketer.com). With this Script, we the user clicks on the 'Tell a friend' link, they are transported to a page with a form where the user is asked for their email address and that of their friends. When the form is submitted, an email is sent to the friend's email address with a greetings message and a link to the referred Web page.
Enlarge	Tell a friend Tell a friend is an extremely efficient marketing strategy in all forms of business. This is especially true for the web, where trust levels can be very low with new visitors. Referring a site to a friend is an extremely powerful way of gaining not only new visitors to your site, but more confident customers to your site. In this environment, a referral from a trusted source can make all the difference in converting a visitor into a customer. Research has shown that 'Tell a friend' can bring the best source of traffic to your website because a referral adds real credibility to your sit and consequently, your business. A recent study showed that more than half (53%) of Internet users visited websites that were referred by people they know. (eMarketer.com). Slightly more complex than the 'Tell a friend' object above. This script also validates the email addresses and systematically checks to ensure that all essential fields contain information. If validation and/or the checks return a false value, the user is informed. Both the form and form processing script are situated on the same page.
	Contact Us Form (basic) Websites should be two-way communication systems. You communicate your message to your customers, clients and visitors and make it easy for them to reciprocate by communicating with you. The better the communication, the more trust they have in you and the more comfortable they feel doing business with you. A contact form makes it easy for your users to divulge specific information about them, your services or Website etc. You are in control of what information is submitted. The contact form is a must marketing tool that unfortunately, is often not present. This Script is a simple tool to find out the user's name and email address. It allows them to add a subject and send a message to an email box of your choice.
	Contact Us Form Websites should be two-way communication systems. You communicate your message to your customers, clients and visitors and make it easy for them to reciprocate by communicating with you. The better the communication, the more trust they have in you and the more comfortable they feel doing business with you. A contact form makes it easy for your users to divulge specific information about them, your services or Website etc. You are in control of what information is submitted. The contact form is a must marketing tool that unfortunately, is often not present. Slightly more complex than the 'Contact Us' form object above. This script also validates the email addresses and systematically checks to ensure that all essential fields contain information. If validation and/or the checks return a false value, the user is informed. Both the form and form processing script are situated on the same page.

Because Javascript executes on the users' computer, in some cases it can be exploited for malicious purposes. This is one reason why some people choose to disable JavaScript on their PCs. JavaScript is sometimes interpreted differently by different browsers. Whereas server-side scripts (for example PHP, will always produce the same output, client-side scripts like Javascript, can produce varying results in different browsers.

	Tell a friend Tell a friend is an extremely efficient marketing strategy in all forms of business. This is especially true for the web, where trust levels can be very low with new visitors. Referring a site to a friend is an extremely powerful way of gaining not only new visitors to your site, but more confident customers to your site. In this environment, a referral from a trusted source can make all the difference in converting a visitor into a customer. Research has shown that 'Tell a friend' can bring the best source of traffic to your website because a referral adds real credibility to your sit and consequently, your business. A recent study showed that more than half (53%) of Internet users visited websites that were referred by people they know. (eMarketer.com). With this Script, we the user clicks on the 'Tell a friend' link, they are transported to a page with a form where the user is asked for their email address and that of their friends. When the form is submitted, an email is sent to the friend's email address with a greetings message and a link to the referred Web page. This is a third party mailing script; therefore, all the information sent via this Web object will pass through someone else's server before it reaches your email inbox.
Links to sites easycounter.com/ website-hit-counters bravenet.com free-counters	Hit Counter Any Website's efficiency can be established by knowing how many visitors it receives in a set time period. A tool used by many Websites to keep a check on how many visitors (hits) a Web page receives, is called a hit counter. A hit counter is a piece of code embedded in a web page which tracks visitors. What information the hit counter records from each customer depends on the complexity of the counters programming. It can record how many hits a Web page has to what part of the world a visitor is coming from. This version simply tells you that someone has visited your site by incrementing the count by one. It is a tool that can keep you informed on how popular your site is. If you want to know which pages in your site are the most frequently visited, you could place this Web object on multiple pages.
	Site Search In today’s fast moving world, visitors to Websites do not want to spend time trawling through the reams of pages on a site to find specific information.  It has been estimated that over half of web users are search dominated versus hierarchy links dominate. As your site becomes larger, it is important to offer both options. With your own site search engine, you can choose how your visitors find information, goods or services on your site. You are also in control of when your search engine gets updated, so when your site content changes, you can change your site search engine at the same time. Whether you are offering a search box on one page, or providing a search tool for many web pages, a site search feature will help your visitors find what they're looking for, while keeping them on your site. So you will never have to lose a potential customer again! This simple script allows the user to enter and search for a keyword situated either locally on the site or externally on the Web. It will search for the entered keyword in the Google database.
	Mailing List Mailing lists are effective marketing strategies, used to promote new goods or services offered by a company.  They are also used to provide registered users with a portal for acquiring the latest news or information on a particular subject. A mailing list consists of a collection of e-mail addresses that often obtained through Websites.  A user subscribes to a mailing list via an online form and receives emails (usually in the form of newsletters) on a regular basis.  Mailing lists are also useful because they help build relationships between Website owners and their site users.  When participants of mailing lists receive information on goods and services, they will return to the site to investigate. With this Script, we the user clicks on the 'Tell a friend' link, they are transported to a page with a form where the user is asked for their email address and that of their friends. When the form is submitted, an email is sent to the friend's email address with a greetings message and a link to the referred Web page. This is a third party mailing script; therefore, all the information sent via this Web object will pass through someone else's server before it reaches your email inbox.
	Password Protect By default, Website pages are available to everyone to read. It may be that you want to protect all or part of your site, so that only users with valid usernames and passwords can access it.  With Password Protect You can now easily implement password-protection to safe-guard particular pages or folders in your Website. Password protect allows you to restrict access to certain areas of your site by only allowing access to exclusive registered users. With this Script, the user enters a userame and password into a form-based admission tool. Only when the username and password is recognised, will the user be granted access to protected Web pages. If the user enters an incorrect username or password, they are redirected to a page of your choice.
Links to sites bravenet.com/ freeguestbooks.net a-free-guestbook.com freeguestbooks.org	Guestbook Web interactivity is the essential ingredient for a successful Internet-based business, whether it is commercial, academic or social. It is imperative to know your customers' and visitors' opinion to gauge your site's success and identify future online strategies. Creating an online guest-book gives visitors to your site a user-friendly format to provide valuable feedback, at the same time reducing your efforts in collecting and recording this information. The links to the left are a list of sites that provide guestbook scripts where the third party posting service is embedded within the coding.
	Bookmark this page Have you ever gone to a site and liked it so much you wanted to keep going back? Well - you can bookmark it to save the Web page's URL, so next time all you have to do is simply choose it from your list of favourites. Adding a 'bookmark this page' Web object will help to encourage your visitors to return to your site again and again. With this script, your visitor simply clicks on a 'Bookmark this page' link and a popup prompt will appear so they can add your site to their favorites list. In browsers that do not support this object, the text '(Ctrl+D)' will appear instead to inform the user that this shortcut will manually open the ' Add a favourite' prompt box.

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