HTML input field hint

Question

I want to provide the user with a hint on what he needs to enter into my text field. However, when I set the value, it does not disappear once a user clicks on the text field. How can you make it disappear?

<form action="input_password.htm">
  <p>Username:<br><input name="Username" value="Enter username.." type="text" size="20" maxlength="20"></p>
</form>

Answer 1

With a bit of JavaScript:

<input 
  value="Enter username..." 
  onfocus="if (this.value === 'Enter username...') this.value=''" ... />

HTML5 has a nice attribute for this, called placeholder:

<input placeholder="Enter username.." ... />

but this attribute is not supported in old browsers.

Answer 2

the best way to give a hint is placeholder like this:

<input.... placeholder="hint".../>

Answer 3

You'd need attach an onFocus event to the input field via Javascript:

<input type="text" onfocus="this.value=''" value="..." ... />

Answer 4

With HTML5, you can now use the placeholder attribute like this:

<form action="demo_form.asp">
  <input type="text" name="fname" placeholder="First name"><br>
  <input type="text" name="lname" placeholder="Last name"><br>
  <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form> 

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_placeholder.asp

Answer 5

I think for your situation, the easy and simple for your html input , you can probably add the attribute title

<input name="Username" value="Enter username.." type="text" size="20" maxlength="20" title="enter username">

Answer 6

I have the same problem, and I have add this code to my application and its work fine for me.

step -1 : added the jquery.placeholder.js plugin

step -2 :write the below code in your area.

$(function () {
       $('input, textarea').placeholder();
});

And now I can see placeholders on the input boxes!

Answer 7

This is exactly what you want

$(document).tooltip({ selector: "[title]",
                              placement: "top",
                              trigger: "focus",
                              animation: false}); 

<form id="form">
    <label for="myinput1">Browser tooltip appears on hover but disappears on clicking the input field. But this one persists while user is typing within the field</label>
    <input id="myinput1" type="text" title="This tooltip persists" />
    <input id="myinput2" type="text" title="This one also" />
</form>

[ref]

Answer 8

If you mean like a text in the background, I'd say you use a label with the input field and position it on the input using CSS, of course. With JS, you fade out the label when the input receives values and fade it in when the input is empty. In this way, it is not possible for the user to submit the description, whether by accident or intent.

Answer 9

If you don't insist on the hint being displayed inside the input field, a modern solution would use a label element with the for attribute referring to the id of the input field, like this:

<form action="input_password.htm">
  <label for="username" title="This is your user name...">Username: </label><input id="username" name="Username" type="text" size="20" maxlength="20"></p>
</form>

If you click the label, the input field will get the input focus. If you hover over the label, it will show a longer explanation. Generally the label should describe well enough what the user has to enter (in the case of user name it should be very much obvious).

Answer 10

Define tooltip text

<input type="text" id="firstname" name="firstname" tooltipText="Type in your firstname in this box"> 

Initialize and configure the script

<script type="text/javascript">
var tooltipObj = new DHTMLgoodies_formTooltip();
tooltipObj.setTooltipPosition('right');
tooltipObj.setPageBgColor('#EEE');
tooltipObj.setCloseMessage('Exit');
tooltipObj.initFormFieldTooltip();
</script>