Travel Agency Project:
Contact Form

Introduction

In this task you will use template content to add a Contact Form page to the ‘Travel Agency’ website project you created earlier.

You can display a finished version of the Contact Form web page by clicking the image below.

Learning Goals

At the end of this Tutorial you will be able to:

• Use the File | Save As command in Visual Studio Code to create a new web page based on an existing one.
• Copy selected HTML with text content from a template file to a sample web page.
• Copy selected CSS from a template file to a sample stylesheet.
• Edit the copied HTML and CSS as required.

Downloading the new hero image

Your first step is to download the image file for the new 'Contact Form' web page you will create.

1. Right-click the image below and, from the context menu displayed, choose Save Image As
2. Download the image file to your websites\portfolio\travel\assets\img sub-folder:

Creating your Contact Form web page

Your new Contact Form web page will be similar in design to the already existing three pages in your sample ̰Travel Agency̱ website and will use the same stylesheet.

So you can use the current home page index.html file as the basis for creating the new page.

Start Visual Studio Code and follow these steps.

1. From your websites\portfolio\travel folder, open the web page named index.html.
2. From the File menu, choose the Save As command.
3. Save the HTML file in the same folder as the project’s three other web pages, and give the new file the following name:   contact-us.html

You are now ready to edit your new contact-us.html web page.

Editing your Contact Form web page

You need to update the content of your new contact-us.html web page.

1. In Visual Studio Code, edit the <h2> sub-heading in the hero section by replacing the current text with the following:  

   <h2>Making your holiday special</h2>
   

2. Scroll down under the hero section of the web page to the first container-flexbox section.   Replace the <h2> sub-heading and <p> text paragraph with the following.

   <h2>A getaway the way you want it</h2>
   <p>If one of our regular holiday offerings is not what you are looking for, our expert staff can help you plan that special getaway for your unique tastes.</p>  
   <p>Take your first step to a holiday you will never forget by completing the form below.</p>
   

3. After the end of this first container-flexbox section, you can delete the rest of the HTML and text on this page.   Remove everything all the way down to the closing </body> tag
4. When finished, save your contact-us.html web page.
   
   

Editing your Contact Form hero image

To update the hero image on your new contact-us.html web page, you need to:

• Create a new CSS class for the new hero image.
• Assign the new hero image file name as the value for the background-image property of this new class.

Follow these steps.

1. In Visual Studio Code, edit the second class name at the top of the hero image section of the contact-us.html web page as follows. The first class of container-hero-block controls all the properties so the hero section – except the actual background image. The image file used as the background will be set by your new class named contact-us-page.   You can now save and close the contact-us.html web page.
2. In VS Code, open the style.css file for this project. It is located in your websites/portfolio/travel/assets/css sub-folder.
3. Near the top of the CSS file you can see the three classes that set the background-image files for the three web pages in your first version of this project.   After the third class named .container-hero-block.about-us-page, press the ENTER key a few times to open up some new lines of blank space.
4. Copy-and-paste the new class below to set the hero image for your new contact-us.html web page.

   .container-hero-block.contact-us-page {
       background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0,0,0,0.2),rgba(0,0,0,0.2)), url("../img/hero-contact-us.jpg")  
   }  
   

5. When finished, save your style.css stylesheet.

In your web browser, the contact-us.html web page should now look as shown below.

Working with the template HTML file

In this next step, you will work with two HTML files:

• The template file you will copy from and
• The web page you will copy to.

1. In Visual Studio Code, from your websites\templates folder, open the following HTML file:   contact-form-template.html
2. From your websites\portfolio\travel folder, open the web page named contact-us.html.

If you have any other files open in Visual Studio, you may wish to close them.

This will help you to focus only on the two HTML files you will be working with.

Adding the <head> link for the Font Awesome icons

Your contact form will use a Font Awesome 5 icon. So you need to include a link to the Font Awesome stylesheet CSS file.

1. In the <head> of the contact-us.html web page, just before the closing </head> tag, copy-and-paste the following comment line and code.

   <!-- Link to icons for Font Awesome 5 -->
   <link href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/5.14.0/css/all.min.css" rel="stylesheet" integrity="sha512-1PKOgIY59xJ8Co8+NE6FZ+LOAZKjy+KY8iq0G4B3CyeY6wYHN3yt9PW0XpSriVlkMXe40PTKnXrLnZ9+fkDaog==" crossorigin="anonymous">  
   

   The pasted comment and Font Awesome link should now look as follows.
2. When finished, save your contact-us.html web page.
   
   

Copying-and-pasting the Contact Form HTML

Your next step is to copy content from the template file into your web page.

1. In the contact-form-template.html file, select and copy the form content.
2. In your contact-us.html web page, scroll down to near the end of the web page, to just before the closing </body> tag.
3. Press the ENTER key a few times to open up some new lines of blank space.
4. Paste the copied contact form content.
5. When finished, save your contact-us.html web page.

You can now close the contact-form-template.html file. You are finished working with it.

Working with the template CSS file

In your next step you will work with two CSS files:

• The template CSS file you will copy from and
• The stylesheet you will copy to.

1. In Visual Studio Code, from your websites\templates folder, open the following CSS file:   contact-form-template.css
2. From your websites\portfolio\travel\assets\css folder, open your stylesheet named style.css.

If you have any other files open in Visual Studio, you may wish to close them.

This will help you to focus only on the two CSS files you will be working with.

Copying-and-pasting the Contact Form CSS

In this step you will copy from the contact form template CSS file into your style.css file.

1. In your contact-form-template.css file, select and copy the contact form.
2. In your style.css file, scroll down to the end of the stylesheet and click on the last empty line.
3. Press the ENTER key a few times to open up some new lines of blank space.
4. On the new last line, paste the copied contact form styles.
5. When finished, save your style.css stylesheet.

You can now close the contact-form-template.css file. You are finished working with it.

In your web browser, the contact-us.html web page should now look as shown below.

Updating your form content and appearance

You have now successfully added a fourth page containing a functional Contact Form to your portfolio website. All that remains is to:

• Edit the text of the Contact Form to match the website content.
• Update the visual style of the Contact Form to blend with the website’s three other pages.

Editing the text of your Contact Form

Here are the final steps to editing the text content of your Contact Form web page.

1. In the contact-us.html file, delete the <h3> sub-heading and <p> paragraph text above the contact form.
2. Update the form’s action value by copying-and-pasting the endpoint value from Formspree. See the example shown below.
3. You can now save and close the contact-us.html web page.

Updating the visual style of your Contact Form

Here are the final steps to updating the Contact Form web page.

1. In your style.css file, reduce the top margin spacing for the .container-contact-form style as shown below.
2. Change the background-color value for the ‘Submit’ button as shown below.
3. Save your style.css file.

That’s it. You are now finished working with your Contact Form page.

You can display a finished version of the Contact Form web page by clicking the image below.

Upload your project to GitHub

The final step is to upload your project to GitHub.

All the files you have updated for this project are in the travel sub-folder of your websites/portfolio folder.

So the easiest option is simply to upload the entire travel sub-folder to your account on GitHub.

1. If you are not already signed in to your GitHub account, sign in now.
2. On the left of your GitHub home page, click the name of the repository that holds your web pages.
3. On the next GitHub screen displayed, click the portfolio folder.
4. GitHub should now display your portfolio folder.
5. With the portfolio folder displayed on your GitHub screen, click the Add file button and, from the dropdown list displayed, choose the option Upload files.
6. In File/Windows Explorer on your computer, display your portfolio folder and then drag-and-drop the travel folder to the GitHub tab in your web browser.
7. After uploading the travel folder, scroll down to the bottom of the GitHub screen, enter a short message in the Commit changes box, click the Commit changes button, and wait for the upload to complete.

Your updated ‘Travel Agency’ project is now published on GitHub at a web address similar to the following, where username is the username you have chosen for your GitHub account:

https://username.github.io/portfolio/travel/index.html

or, simply:

https://username.github.io/portfolio/travel

It may take a few minutes for your uploaded files to appear on GitHub.

Return to Contents.