jQuery Placeholder Plugin - Fixes the placeholder attribute on non-supported browsers.

jquery.placeholder.js

/* 
* Placeholder plugin for jQuery
* @author Daniel Stocks (http://webcloud.se)
*/
(function($) {
    function Placeholder(input) {
        this.input = input;
        if (input.attr('type') == 'password') {
            this.handlePassword();
        }
        // Prevent placeholder values from submitting
        $(input[0].form).submit(function() {
            if (input.hasClass('placeholder')) {
                input[0].value = '';
            }
        });
    }
    Placeholder.prototype = {
        show : function(loading) {
            // FF and IE saves values when you refresh the page. If the user refreshes the page with 
            // the placeholders showing they will be the default values and the input fields won't be empty.
            
            if (this.input[0].value === '' || (loading && this.valueIsPlaceholder())) {
                if (this.isPassword) {
                    try {
                        this.input[0].setAttribute('type', 'text');
                    } catch (e) {
                        this.input.before(this.fakePassword.show()).hide();
                    }
                }
                this.input[0].value = this.input.attr('placeholder');
                this.input.addClass('placeholder');
            }
        },
        hide : function() {
            if (this.valueIsPlaceholder() && this.input.hasClass('placeholder')) {
                if (this.isPassword) {
                    try {
                        this.input[0].setAttribute('type', 'password');
                    } catch (e) { }
                    // Restore focus for Opera and IE
                    this.input.show();
                    this.input[0].focus();
                }
                this.input[0].value = '';
                this.input.removeClass('placeholder');
            }
        },
        valueIsPlaceholder : function() {
            return this.input[0].value == this.input.attr('placeholder');
        },
        handlePassword: function() {
        
            var input = this.input;
            input.attr('realType', 'password');
            this.isPassword = true;
            // IE < 9 doesn't allow changing the type of password inputs
            if ($.browser.msie && input[0].outerHTML) {
                var fakeHTML = input[0].outerHTML.replace(/type=(['"])?password\1/gi, 'type=$1text$1');
                this.fakePassword = $(fakeHTML).val(input.attr('placeholder')).addClass('placeholder').focus(function() {
                    input.trigger('focus');
                    $(this).hide();
                });
            }
        }
    };
    var supported = !!("placeholder" in document.createElement( "input" ));
    $.fn.placeholder = function() {
        return supported ? this : this.each(function() {        
            var input = $(this);            
            var placeholder = new Placeholder(input);
            placeholder.show(true);
            input.focus(function() {
                placeholder.hide();
            });
            input.blur(function() {
                placeholder.show(false);
            });
            
            // On page refresh, IE doesn't re-populate user input
            // until the window.onload event is fired.
            if ($.browser.msie) {
                $(window).load(function() {
                    if(input.val()) {
                        input.removeClass("placeholder");
                    }
                    placeholder.show(true);
                });
            }
        });
    }
})(jQuery);

useit.js

$(function() {

    // For every input element with the placeholder attribute, do jQuery Placeholder

    $('input[placeholder]').placeholder();
});

Some notes on this when I tried it:

• It uses $.browser.msie which is only present in jQuery < 1.9
• It assumes that IE < 9 will throw an exception (line 26) when you set the type of a password input. In jQuery < 1.9 it unconditionally throws an exception so this code is accessing the element directly.
• I believe that the above exception is not thrown by IE 9 running in IE 8 emulation mode. Gah.

Yep, running this in IE 8 works fine, but I get ***** in password inputs in IE 9 (on Windows XP) emulation IE 8.

Running this in IE8 DOESN'T work correctly. It throws the following error:

Message: 'b.browser.msie' is null or not an object
Line: 10
Char: 417
Code: 0
URI: http://.../jquery.placeholder.min.js

whic then stops the execution of other scripts.

is this thing still useful to this day? plz notify me