[whatwg] Placeholder option for text input boxes

[Andy Lyttle]

On Sep 30, 2008, at 7:57 AM, Garrett Smith wrote:
> If and until user enters text, the "alternate" text is displayed.
>
> The confusing part is that successfully rendered inputs would be
> rendered and still use the alt.
>
> The good part is that it would be (or should be) accessible for  
> screen readers.

But alt here as you're describing it doesn't mean the same thing as  
alt anywhere else.  On an image, alt text says "this means the same  
thing as what's supposed to be displayed."  A placeholder does NOT  
mean the same thing as whatever the user is going to enter.

On the bright side, doing what you suggest shouldn't break anything  
because I'm sure nobody's using it.  However, I don't think that just  
because we have an existing property defined that's used on other  
tags with a different meaning, we should reuse that property for this  
meaning instead of defining a new property.

-- 
Andy Lyttle
whatwg at phroggy.com