How to create a "placeholder" for DIV that act like textfield? - html

Question

Div don't have a placeholder attribute
<div id="editable" contentEditable="true"></div>
I want <Please your enter your Name> to show in DIV when the User backspace the whole text in the DIV, or no text on inside, How can I do it?

Answer 1

Here is a pure CSS only solution:-
<div contentEditable=true data-ph="My Placeholder String"></div>
<style>
[contentEditable=true]:empty:not(:focus):before{
content:attr(data-ph)
}
</style>
Here, we basically select all contentEditable <divs> that are empty & blurred. We then create a pseudo element before the CSS selection (the editable div) and fix our placeholder text (specified the data-ph attribute) as its content.
If you are targeting old school CSS2 browsers, change all occurrences of data-ph to title
Correction.......the :empty selector is not supported in IE version 8 and earlier.

Answer 2

What I find in other answers is that when using :not(:focus) pseudo class, I have to click again in order to get the blinking cursor and be able to type. Such issue doesn't happen if I click on an area other than the placeholder.
My workaround is simply removing :not(:focus). Even though in this way the placeholder will still be there after I click on the editable div, I'm able to type no matter where in the div I click, and the placeholder disappears immediately after I type something.
BTW, I inspected YouTube's comment div implementation, seems they are doing the same thing, e.g. #contenteditable-root.yt-formatted-string[aria-label].yt-formatted-string:empty:before
.editableDiv1,
.editableDiv2 {
border-bottom: 1px solid gray;
outline: none;
margin-top: 20px;
}
.editableDiv1[contentEditable="true"]:empty:not(:focus):before {
content: attr(placeholder)
}
.editableDiv2[contentEditable="true"]:empty:before {
content: attr(placeholder)
}
<div class="editableDiv1" contentEditable=true placeholder="If you click on this placeholder, you have to click again in order to get the blinking cursor and type..."></div>
<div class="editableDiv2" contentEditable=true placeholder="Click on placeholder is fine, it'll disappear after you type something..."></div>

Answer 3

You can try this one !
html:
<div contentEditable=true data-text="Enter name here"></div>
css:
[contentEditable=true]:empty:not(:focus):before{
content:attr(data-text) }
check it out (demo)

Answer 4

in HTML
<div id="editable" contenteditable="true">
<p>Please your enter your Name</p>
</div>
in JavaScript
jQuery.fn.selectText = function(){
var doc = document;
var element = this[0];
console.log(this, element);
if (doc.body.createTextRange) {
var range = document.body.createTextRange();
range.moveToElementText(element);
range.select();
} else if (window.getSelection) {
var selection = window.getSelection();
var range = document.createRange();
range.selectNodeContents(element);
selection.removeAllRanges();
selection.addRange(range);
}
};
$("#editable").click(function() {
$("#editable").selectText();
});
jsFiddle