12868 2011-06-03 01:26:01 +0000 forms: Allow placeholder="" for color and date/time types 2017-07-21 14:40:41 +0000 1 1 1 Unclassified WHATWG HTML unspecified All All RESOLVED WONTFIX https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=19072 P3 enhancement 2016 Q1 1 rasamassen ian annevk cmhjones contributor eoconnor ian jackalmage laura.lee.carlson lwatson mike mjs Paul.Cotton public-html-a11y public-html-admin public-html-wg-issue-tracking robin rubys slave.loren contributor oldest_to_newest 49118 0 rasamassen 2011-06-03 01:26:01 +0000 Per the definition (http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/common-input-element-attributes.html#attr-input-placeholder): The placeholder attribute represents a short hint (a word or short phrase) intended to aid the user with data entry. A hint could be a sample value or a brief description of the expected format. Dates, numbers, and colors could use placeholders as well to display a brief description of the expected format. Reasoning: Because users aren't as smart as computers; for the date type, a placeholder of "##-##-####" or whatever format is expected by the date input would make a lot of sense. <fieldset> <legend>Mail Account</legend> <p><label>Color: <input type="color" name="hex-value" placeholder="Example: #000000"></label></p> <p><label>Time: <input type="time" name="hours-and-seconds" placeholder="##:##:##"></label></p> <p><label>Time: <input type="time" name="hours-and-seconds" placeholder="Military format"></label></p> <p><label>A large number: <input type="number" name="big" min="1000000" placeholder="94520318359"></label></p> </fieldset> 49183 1 jackalmage 2011-06-04 01:11:00 +0000 Color and date are specifically intended to *not* expose a standard text-input box. type=color should expose a dropper or something, and type=date should expose a calendar picker. type=number is a bit different, but the UA should still make it clear by default that it expects a number. You shouldn't have to do anything special by yourself. 49745 2 eoconnor 2011-06-16 22:17:33 +0000 I agree with Tab that <input type=number> is a sufficiently different case from the others, and have separated it into its own bug: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12974 49747 3 eoconnor 2011-06-16 22:20:27 +0000 Updated the bug title to match new scope. 49750 4 ian 2011-06-16 22:43:55 +0000 I don't really understand what a placeholder would look like for type=color or the date-related types. Will have to examine how browsers implement these types to see if it makes sense. 52849 5 mike 2011-08-04 05:04:46 +0000 mass-moved component to LC1 54727 6 ian 2011-08-11 21:15:23 +0000 Marking REMIND for now. Gotta wait for Firefox to implement them and to see if WebKit's UI changes to be more like Opera's or not. Will reopen in ~6 months (feel free to do it for me if I am late in doing so — I do check the REMINDs every few months). 54922 7 ian 2011-08-14 06:22:27 +0000 *** Bug 13169 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** 82323 8 mike 2013-01-30 07:52:17 +0000 This bug was cloned to create HTML WG bug 19072. 94131 9 ian 2013-10-01 23:23:16 +0000 (Punting, pending Firefox implementing type=color.) 112483 10 ian 2014-09-30 17:18:07 +0000 Update: Firefox and Chrome both have basically the same implementation for type=color, for which placeholder="" makes no sense. WebKit and IE (10) still don't seem to support it. Chrome implements all the date-related ones except type=datetime, and for none of them would a placeholder work. iOS Safari does some stuff with some of the widgets, and the placeholders could be used given how they do it. Firefox, IE, and WebKit still don't seem to support the date-related ones on desktop. Firefox Android doesn't either. They all do type=number and show a placeholder, as the spec allows. http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/js/live-dom-viewer/saved/3220 Continuing to punt given the current situation. 112486 11 ian 2014-09-30 17:29:01 +0000 Correction, kbrosnan points out that actually Firefox on Android does do something when you tap the text fields. So Firefox on Android supports them more or less like iOS Safari does: they're buttons (though they look like text fields) that pop up UI. They actually do support placeholder="" on them currently. It's hard to know what to do if half the implementations show the placeholders and half don't. On the one hand, if they show them, it makes sense to allow them to be specified! On the other, if an author is relying on them to be shown, a user might get lost if the information isn't shown, and then the author will blame the browsers, even though IMHO it's perfectly reasonable not to show them... 128762 12 annevk 2017-07-21 14:40:41 +0000 If still desired, please file a new issue against https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/new.