Delete default value of an input text on click

I have an input text :

<input name="Email" type="text" id="Email" value="[email protected]" />

I want to put a default value like "What's your programming question ? be specific." in StackOverFlow, and when the user click on it the default value disapear.

For future reference, I have to include the HTML5 way to do this.

<input name="Email" type="text" id="Email" value="[email protected]" placeholder="What's your programming question ? be specific." />

If you have a HTML5 doctype and a HTML5-compliant browser, this will work. However, many browsers do not currently support this, so at least Internet Explorer users will not be able to see your placeholder. However, see http://www.kamikazemusic.com/quick-tips/jquery-html5-placeholder-fix/ (archive.org version) for a solution. Using that, you'll be very modern and standards-compliant, while also providing the functionality to most users.

Also, the provided link is a well-tested and well-developed solution, which should work out of the box.

EDIT: Although, this solution works, I would recommend you try MvanGeest's solution below which uses the placeholder-attribute and a javascript fallback for browsers which don't support it yet.

If you are looking for a Mootools equivalent to the JQuery fallback in MvanGeest's reply, here is one.

--

You should probably use onfocus and onblur events in order to support keyboard users who tab through forms.

Here's an example:

<input type="text" value="[email protected]" name="Email" id="Email"
 onblur="if (this.value == '') {this.value = '[email protected]';}"
 onfocus="if (this.value == '[email protected]') {this.value = '';}" />

This is somewhat cleaner, i think. Note the usage of the "defaultValue" property of the input:

<script>
function onBlur(el) {
    if (el.value == '') {
        el.value = el.defaultValue;
    }
}
function onFocus(el) {
    if (el.value == el.defaultValue) {
        el.value = '';
    }
}
</script>
<form>
<input type="text" value="[some default value]" onblur="onBlur(this)" onfocus="onFocus(this)" />
</form>

Using jQuery, you can do:

$("input:text").each(function ()
{
    // store default value
    var v = this.value;

    $(this).blur(function ()
    {
        // if input is empty, reset value to default 
        if (this.value.length == 0) this.value = v;
    }).focus(function ()
    {
        // when input is focused, clear its contents
        this.value = "";
    }); 
});

And you could stuff all this into a custom plug-in, like so:

jQuery.fn.hideObtrusiveText = function ()
{
    return this.each(function ()
    {
        var v = this.value;

        $(this).blur(function ()
        {
            if (this.value.length == 0) this.value = v;
        }).focus(function ()
        {
            this.value = "";
        }); 
    });
};

Here's how you would use the plug-in:

$("input:text").hideObtrusiveText();

Advantages to using this code is:

• Its unobtrusive and doesn't pollute the DOM
• Code re-use: it works on multiple fields
• It figures out the default value of inputs by itself

Non-jQuery approach:

function hideObtrusiveText(id)
{
    var e = document.getElementById(id);

    var v = e.value;

    e.onfocus = function ()
    {
        e.value = "";
    };

    e.onblur = function ()
    {
        if (e.value.length == 0) e.value = v;
    };
}