Forms: use a `placeholder` attribute in the editor instead of `value` #41712

simison · 2025-02-11T11:00:50Z

Use a placeholder attribute in the editor for placeholder text instead of value attribute.

By using value, we have a couple issues.

When theme includes styling for ::placeholder pseudo element, we don't show it. Consider for example CSS:

input::placeholder {
	font-style: italic;
}

Before

After

When we add a number input, its type="number" disallows non-numeric value, even if placeholder could be numeric. We would only need to support numeric placeholders for that input. We could change that field to type="text" in the editor, but that would miss out browser number controls, any styling applied to number fields, and otherwise also mismatch what they see in the editor with frontend.

Before

After

Proposed changes:

Use a placeholder attribute in the editor for placeholder text instead of value attribute.
Use value attribute for entering the placeholder value while block is focused

Other information:

Have you written new tests for your changes, if applicable?
Have you checked the E2E test CI results, and verified that your changes do not break them?
Have you tested your changes on WordPress.com, if applicable (if so, you'll see a generated comment below with a script to run)?

Jetpack product discussion

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

Testing instructions:

Add different inputs and set their placeholders; they continue working.
Try different form styles; you can still enter placeholders in editor with "animated" style, but with "outlined" style you can't. That's pre-existing issue. You can use the sidebar input, though.

github-actions · 2025-02-11T11:01:47Z

Are you an Automattician? Please test your changes on all WordPress.com environments to help mitigate accidental explosions.

To test on WoA, go to the Plugins menu on a WoA dev site. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the upgrade flow to be able to upload, install, and activate the Jetpack Beta plugin. Once the plugin is active, go to Jetpack > Jetpack Beta, select your plugin (Jetpack), and enable the update/forms-placeholder-attr-in-editor branch.
To test on Simple, run the following command on your sandbox:

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack update/forms-placeholder-attr-in-editor

Interested in more tips and information?

In your local development environment, use the jetpack rsync command to sync your changes to a WoA dev blog.
Read more about our development workflow here: PCYsg-eg0-p2
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github-actions · 2025-02-11T11:01:48Z

Thank you for your PR!

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github-actions · 2025-02-11T11:09:46Z

Code Coverage Summary

This PR did not change code coverage!

That could be good or bad, depending on the situation. Everything covered before, and still is? Great! Nothing was covered before? Not so great. 🤷

Full summary · PHP report · JS report

enejb · 2025-02-11T13:40:50Z

@simison Does this work as expected for you in any text input field?
I am not able to get it to work. It replaces the first character only.

lezama

makes sense

lezama · 2025-02-11T14:04:35Z

works ok for me

It replaces the first character only.

what do you mean? 😆

edanzer · 2025-02-11T15:48:58Z

I see what @enejb is talking about. With this PR loaded, I can add placeholder text as expected in the sidebar. But if I try to type placeholder text directly into the input in the main part of the block editor, it always deletes all but the last character I typed. I also confirmed this does not happen on trunk. I'm sure it's just some mix-up of state - basically since we changed the relationship between value and placeholder, we don't track value properly when typing into the input.

simison · 2025-02-11T15:58:18Z

Weird, that's the scenario that worked for me just fine, but I'll do further testing 👍 Might be browser dependant.

edanzer · 2025-02-11T16:09:08Z

Just to be sure we're talking and seeing the same thing, here's a video of the behavior. I type first in the placholder field in the sidebar (works), and then directly in the input.

I've also confirmed that that if I keep value = { placeholder } like below, the issue is resolved

value={ placeholder }
placeholder={ placeholder }

input-placeholder.mp4

simison · 2025-02-11T16:12:53Z

I've also confirmed that that if I keep value = { placeholder } like below, the issue is resolved

Thanks! It might make sense to retain value when focused on the input, and set it empty when not. 🤔 That would fix the styling (keeping value removes the styles), and would still likely need some changes for inputs like Number where value can be only number.

ntsekouras · 2025-02-12T14:57:29Z

I think we're trying to mix two different concepts in general:

placeholder
default value

And that was actually quite confusing for me when I first interacted with the blocks. When I started typing I thought that would be a default value..

If I'm not wrong the input fields have a prop defaultValue but it's only used in checkbox. I think we should consider allowing both default values and placeholders and have a different way of editing the placeholder (either in Inspector controls as is now, or even in block toolbar).

That would require some design input too to try to ensure that it's clear when typing in an input, it's the default value. A placeholder of course like Enter default value would be needed, but it might be deemed better to have the input uneditable and have a separate control for that too.

jp-launch-control · 2025-02-24T13:33:34Z

Code Coverage Summary

This PR did not change code coverage!

That could be good or bad, depending on the situation. Everything covered before, and still is? Great! Nothing was covered before? Not so great. 🤷

Full summary · PHP report · JS report

simison · 2025-02-27T15:03:57Z

projects/packages/forms/src/blocks/contact-form/components/jetpack-field.js

@@ -51,8 +50,9 @@ const JetpackField = props => {
 					className="jetpack-field__input"
 					onChange={ e => setAttributes( { placeholder: e.target.value } ) }
 					style={ fieldStyle }
-					type={ type }
-					value={ placeholder }
+					type={ isSelected ? 'text' : type }


This is so that you can enter text placeholders for number input. Otherwise, you could only enter numbers.

The downside is that you might lose input[type="number"] specific styling:

edanzer

Tested text and number inputs. Works great.

simison requested a review from a team February 11, 2025 11:00

github-actions bot added [Block] Contact Form Form block (also see Contact Form label) [Feature] Contact Form labels Feb 11, 2025

simison mentioned this pull request Feb 11, 2025

Forms: add number input #40962

Merged

3 tasks

lezama previously approved these changes Feb 11, 2025

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simison mentioned this pull request Feb 14, 2025

Forms: number field #40961

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8 tasks

simison added [Status] In Progress DO NOT MERGE don't merge it! and removed [Status] Needs Review This PR is ready for review. labels Feb 14, 2025

simison force-pushed the update/forms-placeholder-attr-in-editor branch from f0212c6 to f2481f9 Compare February 24, 2025 13:22

simison added 3 commits February 27, 2025 16:19

Forms: use real placeholder attribute in editor instead of value

bbe76c2

changelog

3018527

Allow writing placeholder using input value

0ca873f

simison dismissed lezama’s stale review via 0ca873f February 27, 2025 14:56

simison force-pushed the update/forms-placeholder-attr-in-editor branch from f2481f9 to 0ca873f Compare February 27, 2025 14:56

simison commented Feb 27, 2025

View reviewed changes

edanzer approved these changes Feb 27, 2025

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edanzer merged commit 9d31d55 into trunk Feb 27, 2025
64 checks passed

edanzer deleted the update/forms-placeholder-attr-in-editor branch February 27, 2025 19:48

github-actions bot removed the [Status] In Progress label Feb 27, 2025

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Forms: use a `placeholder` attribute in the editor instead of `value` #41712

Forms: use a `placeholder` attribute in the editor instead of `value` #41712

simison commented Feb 11, 2025 •

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Forms: use a placeholder attribute in the editor instead of value #41712

Forms: use a placeholder attribute in the editor instead of value #41712

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simison commented Feb 11, 2025 • edited Loading

Proposed changes:

Other information:

Jetpack product discussion

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

Testing instructions:

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Code Coverage Summary

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Forms: use a `placeholder` attribute in the editor instead of `value` #41712

Forms: use a `placeholder` attribute in the editor instead of `value` #41712

simison commented Feb 11, 2025 •

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