HTML5: Up and Running

Placeholder Text

The first improvement HTML5 brings to web forms is the ability to set placeholder text in an input field. Placeholder text is displayed inside the input field as long as the field is empty and not focused. As soon as you click on (or tab to) the input field, the placeholder text disappears.

You’ve probably seen placeholder text before. For example, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 now includes placeholder text in the location bar that reads “Search Bookmarks and History”, as shown in Figure 9-1.

Figure 9-1. Placeholder text in Firefox’s search box

When you click on (or tab to) the location bar, the placeholder text disappears (Figure 9-2).

Figure 9-2. Placeholder text disappears on focus

Ironically, Firefox 3.5 does not support adding placeholder text to your own web forms. C’est la vie. Browser support for placeholders is shown in Table 9-1.

Table 9-1. Placeholder support

IE	Firefox	Safari	Chrome	Opera	iPhone	Android
•	3.7+	4.0+	4.0+	•	•	•

Here’s how you can include placeholder text in your own web forms:

<form>
  <input name="q" placeholder="Search Bookmarks and History">
  <input type="submit" value="Search">
</form>

Browsers that don’t support the placeholder attribute will simply ignore it. No harm, no foul.

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