Bug 21286

Summary: placeholder attribute should apply to all focusable nodes that take text input
Product: WebKit Reporter: Ojan Vafai <ojan>
Component: HTML EditingAssignee: Nobody <webkit-unassigned>
Status: NEW ---    
Severity: Normal CC: adele, cmarcelo, rniwa
Priority: P2    
Version: 528+ (Nightly build)   
Hardware: PC   
OS: OS X 10.5   

Description Ojan Vafai 2008-10-01 15:37:04 PDT
The ones that come to mind that are missing right now:
1. textareas
2. contentEditable nodes
3. the body element when designMode is on

In cases 2 and 3, it would be great if the placeholder text could be HTML and be CSS styleable.
Comment 1 Adele Peterson 2008-10-01 15:41:05 PDT
Ojan and I talked about this earlier today.  I think this is a good idea, and could replace a lot of JS that web authors have to write to get this behavior.

We should consider reorganizing the code so that maybe HTMLInputElement, HTMLTextAreaElement, and other editable elements can inherit from some common class.
Comment 2 Dave Hyatt 2008-10-01 15:47:31 PDT
It's a good idea, but we really need to be proposing this to HTML5 before we extend placeholder further IMO.
Comment 3 Ryosuke Niwa 2012-05-01 22:01:10 PDT
I've taken the liberty of posting this proposal on whatwg: http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2012-May/035615.html