placeholder not showing

Hi Aohor,

In order to have a placeholder, you need two things:

* html5 support for search forms (using the add_theme_support function as in the support thread you linked);

* and, to fill in the attribute title of the menu item with the placeholder text on the menu edit screen (in either customizer or the old menu editing screen).

If you’ve done both of these and no placeholder is showing, then run through the following checks:

* check your child theme is turned on;

* check html5 support is on – right click and inspect element on the search submit button, if there’s an id id="searchsubmit", then html4 is still being used.

* check placeholder text is visible – look for ::placeholder selectors in your css (link) and ensure they are not transparent or of the same colour as the search bar background.

Let me know the results of your checks if it still isn’t working.

Cheers,
Joe

I’ve done all the above, and followed the FAQ:
A: This is set via the Attribute Title field in the menu item editor in the admin area.

However there is no Attribute Title field in the menu item editor, only a Navigation Label.

The source code via the browser’s “show source” for the search field is:

<input type=”search” class=”search-field” placeholder=”” value=”” name=”s” title=”” />

I have “Search” as the Navigation label. Website if you have time to take a look is currently at https://olosweb.cbdweb.net/ it’s under development and will move in a week or so to it’s live domain name.

Hi nikdow,

The issue you’re having is down to the foolish fashion that WordPress has implemented the Customizer system. Essentially, not enough QA time has been spent.

Anyway, to see the options you need to go into screen options on the menus page (/wp-admin/nav-menus.php):

and tick Title Attribute. You may well wish to tick all of them rather than go along with WP’s presumption that you can’t be trusted.

This should mean those options are available both in your current page and in the Customizer.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Joe

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by joe_bopper.

Arghhh, I even know about screen options, thanks for the pointer. Working great now.

No problem. I’m pleased it’s working properly for you now. Also, thanks very much for the positive review.