Form Mastery - HTML5 Mastery: Semantics, Standards, and Styling - page 139

such “placeholder” text. But don't worry about this feature for now because it will be
covered later in this chapter!
Password input
A password input is almost identical to a text input; functionally the only difference is
that character input is masked upon entry, usually by a series of dots, as shown in Figure
4-3 . It shares the same possible attributes as a text input; the only difference is that the
type attribute is set to type="password" .
Figure 4-3. A password input showing text being entered
This type of input is not very secure—the form data will still be transmitted as plain
text and will be visible in the URL if your form uses the GET method. This visual mask-
ing is really only to hinder anybody peering over your shoulder from seeing the input
(for example, when you're in a public place and you're logging into your bank's web-
site).
File input
A file input usually takes the form of a browse button of some sort and an area dis-
playing information about the file that has been selected, if any. The appearance varies
significantly between browsers, more so than with other common input types, as shown
in Figure 4-4 .
Figure 4-4. The appearance of the file input control in two different web browsers, Google
Chrome (top) and Opera (bottom)