# mathiasbynens/jquery-placeholder

A jQuery plugin that enables HTML5 placeholder behavior for browsers that aren’t trying hard enough yet

Repository: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/jquery-placeholder
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/jquery-placeholder
Homepage: https://mths.be/placeholder
Language: JavaScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2020-10-20T16:59:48+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6070, "days_push": 2143, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3921, forks 1300 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:29.774823+00:00)

## What it is
A jQuery plugin that polyfills the HTML5 placeholder attribute for input and textarea elements in browsers without native support. It feature-detects native placeholder support, applies emulated behavior (including a styling class and correct .val() semantics) only where needed, and works down to IE6.

## Use cases
- support placeholder text in old browsers like ie
- polyfill html5 placeholder attribute
- show placeholders in textarea for safari and opera
- add placeholder fallback to jquery forms
- make input values behave correctly while placeholder is showing
- style placeholder text consistently across browsers

## When to choose
- you maintain a legacy site that must support IE6-9 or other browsers lacking native placeholder support
- your stack is already jQuery-based and you want a drop-in polyfill
- you need .val() to return an empty string while placeholder text is displayed, matching native behavior

## When to avoid
- you only target modern browsers, which all support the placeholder attribute natively
- your project does not use jQuery (a vanilla polyfill would be lighter)
- you need actively developed software with new features or timely fixes

## Facets
- artifact type: plugin
- maturity: maintenance
- function: form-handling, ui-components
- domain: web-development, frontend
- platform: browser
- tags: jquery-plugin, polyfill, html5-placeholder, legacy-browser-support, ie-compatibility, form-inputs, textareas

## Member repositories
- mathiasbynens/jquery-placeholder (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:29.774823+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:25:00.762282+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/jquery-placeholder (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:29.774823+00:00, sha fbb443c0e646)
  - homepage: https://mths.be/placeholder (fetched 2026-08-29T09:19:08.434147+00:00, sha fb1a811ad20c)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/jquery-placeholder (fetched 2026-08-29T09:19:08.444003+00:00, sha d46ac5fcf25f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.