This is definitely a dilemma...  The javascript forms are awesome because you can update them via the "back door" while it's already live on the site.

The problem is that Internet Explorer is just plain rough.  More people use it than any other browser (because it comes with Windows) and it likes to warn people about every little piece of content, rendering your javascript form unviewable until they click the yellow bar across the top of the screen.  Big pain in the ass really.

For this reason I still use html forms, but you actually have to edit the code on the page rather than updating the form code from inside the autoresponder.  That's the trade off for making sure your form will show up.  IE does not block standard html, but it will sometimes block Javascript, or at least warn the user.

Jonathan,

I use Getresponse for my autoresponder and they give me the option of using the JS form or the html form.  I'm guessing Aweber does something similar.

One thing about the html forms though, because they have a custom form builder, you'll find that the HTML form comes with a ton of styles.  This makes the code big and messy.

Generally I only copy and paste the functional form data on the page, while declaring the styles inside of my css style-sheet.

The way to do this as cleanly as possible is to locate where the actual functioning form starts. <form action="... " and copy down to </form>  Paste this on your page, but also give the form a class attribute <form action="..." class="myform">

Then declare a style class inside of your css file
call it .myform { } and paste the form styles in in between the curly braces.

Bit of a pain in the ass, but then everytime you want the same identical form to appear on one of your pages just add that form class to the form tag and it will look exactly the same every time.  You'll just have to make sure you've got the right aweber list id for the html form (so that people are opting into the right list since they all "myform"s will look the same).

Confusing huh?

John Oszajca said:

Hey Johnathan,

This is the first I've heard of or seen that. My guess is that it's not too big of an issue because I would think that after millions of visitors I would of received an email or two. Still, it does sound like a pain.

John, I was using the JS forms a few months back for something else I rely heavily on the autoresponder for.  A lot of the company's clients are well into their retired years and their computer savvy pretty much reaches as far as checking email.  It turned out to be far easier for me to just switch forms then to explain to them how to view the forms. 

The article Scott posted nailed it completely.  That's exactly what is going on here with JS forms and Internet Explorer.  I particularly liked the little jab about everyone else but Microsoft actually caring about web standards 🙂

But I agree that most well-versed web surfers will definitely see the alert bar and allow the content, making this a non issue.