Comments on: Using input values as hints, the easy way

By: 70 Great, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques « Social-Press

70 Great, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques « Social-Press — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:41:40 +0000

[...] Using input values as hints Give users hints on what to input in textfields. Each field auto-clears when the user clicks or tabs to it. If nothing is entered, the hint reappears once the user moves away. [...]

By: 70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques - Smashing Magazine

70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques - Smashing Magazine — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:33:53 +0000

[...] [...]

By: 70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques | Rystereology

70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques | Rystereology — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:27:16 +0000

By: 70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques « Ramesh

70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques « Ramesh — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:37:57 +0000

By: Anders Toxboe

Anders Toxboe — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:17:00 +0000

The pattern you describe is also called "Input Prompt" – check it out at http://ui-patterns.com/pattern/InputPrompt

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:17:00 +0000

This is really handy stuff – but I’m a little concerned that when a form is submitted, the default value is submitted along with it – creating a bit of an issue with validations.

Is there a clean way of avoiding this without having to make a mess of your validations?

By: Thomas Fuchs

Thomas Fuchs — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:17:00 +0000

@Adam That’s something that requires some work when submitting the form. I’m also working on a micro-formvalidation framework, and I’m planning to make it aware of the defaultValueActsAsHint "plugin".

By: Thomas Fuchs

Thomas Fuchs — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:17:00 +0000

@Thomas Broyer Interesting, didn’t know that. I personally don’t think this is something that should go in a spec, tho. This is where JavaScript shines: really customizable behavioural extensions. But we’ll see what the future brings here.

By: Thomas Fuchs

Thomas Fuchs — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:17:00 +0000

@Chris W: As for accessibility, I stand by my old and often-repeated viewpoint, that you just can’t implement something that works well for all people.

In the case of freckle, the users are of the tech-savvy ‘power-user’ type, and like to be able to log their time without the interface getting in the way. We’re pretty extensively using JavaScript within the application, to do all sorts of things that you ideally don’t notice at all. Our code ratio for the application is actually about 50% JavaScript and 50% Ruby.

By: Romain

Romain — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:17:00 +0000

I wrote the same kind of plugin with jquery .. it takes care of the submit issue that Adam was talking about.
The plugin is a part of the jquery-decorated suite, available on google code :
http://code.google.com/p/jquery-decorated

Just download the package and try the taperici demo in it.