# HTML5 Placeholder jQuery Plugin ## Demo & Examples [http://mathiasbynens.be/demo/placeholder](http://mathiasbynens.be/demo/placeholder) ## Example Usage ### HTML ```html ``` ### jQuery Use the plugin as follows: ```js $('input, textarea').placeholder(); ``` You’ll still be able to use `jQuery#val()` to get and set the input values. If the element is currently showing a placeholder, `.val()` will return an empty string instead of the placeholder text, just like it does in browsers with a native `@placeholder` implementation. Calling `.val('')` to set an element’s value to the empty string will result in the placeholder text (re)appearing. ### CSS The plugin automatically adds `class="placeholder"` to the elements who are currently showing their placeholder text. You can use this to style placeholder text differently: ```css input, textarea { color: #000; } .placeholder { color: #aaa; } ``` I’d suggest sticking to the `#aaa` color for placeholder text, as it’s the default in most browsers that support `@placeholder`. If you really want to, though, you can [style the placeholder text in some of the browsers that natively support it](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2610497/change-an-inputs-html5-placeholder-color-with-css/2610741#2610741). ## Installation You can install jquery-placeholder by using [Bower](http://bower.io). ```bash bower install jquery-placeholder ``` ## Notes * Requires jQuery 1.6+. For an older version of this plugin that works under jQuery 1.4.2+, see [v1.8.7](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/jquery-placeholder/tree/v1.8.7). * Works in all A-grade browsers, including IE6. * Automatically checks if the browser natively supports the HTML5 `placeholder` attribute for `input` and `textarea` elements. If this is the case, the plugin won’t do anything. If `@placeholder` is only supported for `input` elements, the plugin will leave those alone and apply to `textarea`s exclusively. (This is the case for Safari 4, Opera 11.00, and possibly other browsers.) * Caches the results of its two feature tests in `jQuery.fn.placeholder.input` and `jQuery.fn.placeholder.textarea`. For example, if `@placeholder` is natively supported for `input` elements, `jQuery.fn.placeholder.input` will be `true`. After loading the plugin, you can re-use these properties in your own code. * Makes sure it never causes duplicate IDs in your DOM, even in browsers that need an extra `input` element to fake `@placeholder` for password inputs. This means you can safely do stuff like: ```html ``` And the `