Internet Explorer 8 doesn't support the HTML5 placeholder attribute that we can use to label our text fields. Fortunately, we can emulate this attribute with jQuery. Let's see how.
We have to create a plugin to exactly position an element with its text label just over a text field:
(function($) {
$.fn.placeholder = function(options) {
var that = this;
if(!that.is('input[type=text]')) {
return;
}
var defaults = {
text: 'Placeholder'
};
options = $.extend(defaults, options);
var top = that.offset().top;
var left = that.offset().left;
return that.each(function() {
$('<span class="placeholder"/>').text(options.text).
css({
position: 'absolute',
top: top,
left: left
}).insertAfter(that);
that.focus(function() {
that.next('span.placeholder').hide();
});
that.blur(function() {
if(that.val() == '') {
that.next('span.placeholder').show();
}
});
});
};
})(jQuery);
We use the top and left offsets of the text field to position our element. We use then focus and blur to hide the placeholder while a user is typing and to show it again if the field's value is empty, respectively.
An example:
$(function() {
$('#text', '#form').placeholder({text: 'Lorem'});
$('#text2', '#form').placeholder({text: 'Lorem ipsum'});
});
You can see the demo below.