change type of input field with jQuery

user_95944 0
Viewed 369068
$(document).ready(function() {
    // #login-box password field
    $('#password').attr('type', 'text');
    $('#password').val('Password');
});

This is supposed to change the #password input field (with id="password") that is of type password to a normal text field, and then fill in the text “Password”.

It doesn’t work, though. Why?

Here is the form:

<form enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" method="post" action="/auth/sign-in">
  <ol>
    <li>
      <div class="element">
        <input type="text" name="username" id="username" value="Prihlasovacie meno" class="input-text" />
      </div>
    </li>
    <li>
      <div class="element">
        <input type="password" name="password" id="password" value="" class="input-text" />
      </div>
    </li>
    <li class="button">
      <div class="button">
        <input type="submit" name="sign_in" id="sign_in" value="Prihlásiť" class="input-submit" />
      </div>
    </li>
  </ol>
</form>
html-input jquery javascript
29 Answers

Even easier... there's no need for all the dynamic element creation. Just create two separate fields, making one the 'real' password field (type="password") and one a 'fake' password field (type="text"), setting the text in the fake field to a light gray color and setting the initial value to 'Password'. Then add a few lines of Javascript with jQuery as below:

    <script type="text/javascript">

        function pwdFocus() {
            $('#fakepassword').hide();
            $('#password').show();
            $('#password').focus();
        }

        function pwdBlur() {
            if ($('#password').attr('value') == '') {
                $('#password').hide();
                $('#fakepassword').show();
            }
        }
    </script>

    <input style="color: #ccc" type="text" name="fakepassword" id="fakepassword" value="Password" onfocus="pwdFocus()" />
    <input style="display: none" type="password" name="password" id="password" value="" onblur="pwdBlur()" />

So when the user enters the 'fake' password field it will be hidden, the real field will be shown, and the focus will move to the real field. They will never be able to enter text in the fake field.

When the user leaves the real password field the script will see if it's empty, and if so will hide the real field and show the fake one.

Be careful not to leave a space between the two input elements because IE will position one a little bit after the other (rendering the space) and the field will appear to move when the user enters/exits it.

user_2778980

An ultimate way to use jQuery:

Leave the original input field hidden from the screen.

$("#Password").hide(); //Hide it first
var old_id = $("#Password").attr("id"); //Store ID of hidden input for later use
$("#Password").attr("id","Password_hidden"); //Change ID for hidden input

Create new input field on the fly by JavaScript.

var new_input = document.createElement("input");

Migrate the ID and value from hidden input field to the new input field.

new_input.setAttribute("id", old_id); //Assign old hidden input ID to new input
new_input.setAttribute("type","text"); //Set proper type
new_input.value = $("#Password_hidden").val(); //Transfer the value to new input
$("#Password_hidden").after(new_input); //Add new input right behind the hidden input

To get around the error on IE like type property cannot be changed, you may find this useful as belows:

Attach click/focus/change event to new input element, in order to trigger the same event on hidden input.

$(new_input).click(function(){$("#Password_hidden").click();});
//Replicate above line for all other events like focus, change and so on...

Old hidden input element is still inside the DOM so will react with the event triggered by new input element. As ID is swapped, new input element will act like the old one and respond to any function call to old hidden input's ID, but looks different.

A little bit tricky but WORKS!!! ;-)

user_2529500

I just did the following to change the type of an input:

$('#ID_of_element')[0].type = 'text';

and it works.

I was needing to do this because I was using jQuery UI datepickers' in an ASP NET Core 3.1 project and they were not working properly on Chromium-based browsers (see: https://stackoverflow.com/a/61296225/7420301).

user_74203010
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