Lightweight and very robust little jQuery plugin that generates the look and feel of the HTML5 placeholder attribute for browsers without native support. It also adds an extra title in case the placeholder text is too long to be displayed. The polyfill comes with an option to define if the placeholder text should be read to screenreaders or not (on by default). New in version 1.9 is the option to make it behave like Chrome or mobile Safari (hide placeholder when the users enters content rather than when the fields receives focus).
To see the actual work of this polyfill use an old browser like Firefox 3.6!
- check out the DEMO
- check out the Chrome style DEMO
- check out the DEMO using Modernizr to load the Polyfill (Thanks to Modernizr/yepnope nothing needs to get loaded when the Browser natively supports the placeholder)
- jQuery (tested with 1.6.2 but might as well work with older versions)
- Modernizr (tested with 2.0.6) OR yepnope.js
Optional but recommended:
- fontresize (excellent even though terribly unmaintained event plugin that fires when a user changes the font size of their browser (that usually breaks the other placeholder polyfills))
Highly optional (only needed if you want users to be able to resize textareas):
- jquery-resize if included a repositioning is triggered when a user resizes a textarea. If not I disable the resizing of textareas to avoid rendering problems
Required only if hiding placeholder when user types instead of onfocus like Chrome or mobile Safari:
- requestAnimationFrame polyfill better than a simple timeout loop as browsers can slow the loop down when it's not the active window
The placeholder attribute has decent support across current Browsers. This script adds support for the older generations including:
- Internet Explorer < 10
- Firefox < 4.0
- Safari < 4.0
- iOS Safari < 4.0
- Android Browser < 2.0
For more details on native support see the browser suppport table at caniuse.com.
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="placeholder_polyfill.min.css">
<script src="placeholder_polyfill.jquery.min.combo.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</head>
Using Modernizr, modern browser don't even have to load the polyfill at all.
<script>
Modernizr.load({
test: Modernizr.input.placeholder,
nope: [
'placeholder_polyfill.min.css',
'placeholder_polyfill.jquery.min.combo.js'
]
});
</script>
Using yepnope.js (used as load() in Modernizr), the same as with Modernizr, but with manual feature detection.
<script>
yepnope({
test: ('placeholder' in $('<input>')[0]),
nope: [
'placeholder_polyfill.min.css',
'placeholder_polyfill.jquery.min.combo.js'
]
});
</script>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="placeholder_polyfill.min.css">
<script>
placeHolderConfig = {
// css class that is used to style the placeholder
className: 'placeholder',
// expose the placeholder text to screenreaders or not
visibleToScreenreaders : true,
// css class is used to visually hide the placeholder
visibleToScreenreadersHideClass : 'placeholder-hide-except-screenreader',
// css class used to hide the placeholder for all
visibleToNoneHideClass : 'placeholder-hide',
// either hide the placeholder on focus or on type
hideOnFocus : false,
// remove this class from a label (to fix hidden labels)
removeLabelClass : 'visuallyhidden',
// replace the label above with this class
hiddenOverrideClass : 'visuallyhidden-with-placeholder',
// allow the replace of the removeLabelClass with hiddenOverrideClass or not
forceHiddenOverride : true,
// apply the polyfill even for browser with native support
forceApply : false,
// init automatically or not
autoInit : true
}
</script>
<script src="placeholder_polyfill.jquery.min.combo.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</head>