Are any HTML attributes rendered as text by the browser besides alt text and placeholder?

Question

I am trying to find and replace all the text on a webpage with JavaScript. I am currently using a variation of the following code from this answer which recursively processes every Text node in the document.

function replaceInText(element, pattern, replacement) {
    for (let node of element.childNodes) {
        switch (node.nodeType) {
            case Node.ELEMENT_NODE:
                replaceInText(node, pattern, replacement);
                break;
            case Node.TEXT_NODE:
                node.textContent = node.textContent.replace(pattern, replacement);
                break;
            case Node.DOCUMENT_NODE:
                replaceInText(node, pattern, replacement);
        }
    }
}

replaceInText(document, /e/gi, '');

Once I tested it out, I discovered that there's an exception: the placeholder attribute of <input> and <textarea> elements. These are not Text nodes, but are still displayed as visible text by the browser and searchable with CTRL-F. Try running the above on the Stack Overflow homepage and see that the search bar is left out.

Now I'm wondering if there's any other attributes out there like this too. All I can currently think of is value for <input> and <textarea>, alt for <img> and <area>, and the global title attribute (tooltips), and I'm worried I'm missing some obscure attribute since I couldn't find a comprehensive list of this sort anywhere.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 01 '21 at 22:53

It's been a while and I've discovered value for input[type="button"]and I will record my list so far below. I have marked the answer as community wiki so anybody who finds more can easily add them.

placeholder for <input> and <textarea>: placeholder text
value for <input> and <textarea>: actual contents of field
value for <input type="button">: the text inside the button
alt for <img>, <area>, and <input type="image">: alternative text for when images fails to load
title for anything: tooltip that displays on mouse hover

Are any HTML attributes rendered as text by the browser besides alt text and placeholder?

1 Answers1