HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
is made active. It only takes an attribute value of
autofocus
when using the XML-style
syntax for HTML5.
cols
This attribute sets the width, in characters, of the text area. The typical default value
for the size of a
<textarea>
tag when this attribute is not set is
20
characters.
disabled
This attribute is used to turn off a form control. Elements will not be submitted,
nor can they receive any focus from the keyboard or mouse. Disabled form controls will not
be part of the tabbing order. The browser also can gray out the form that is disabled, to
indicate to the user that the form control is inactive. This attribute requires no value.
form
This HTML5 attribute should be set to a string that corresponds to the
id
of the form
element that an interactive control such as a button is associated with. This allows form
elements in one form to trigger actions in others.
name
This attribute allows a form control to be assigned a name for submitting to the
server the appropriate name/value pair. Previously it was also used so that the field could
be referenced by a scripting language. However, it is more appropriate to use the
id
attribute. For compatibility purposes, both attributes might be used and set to the same
value.
pattern
This HTML5 attribute specifies a regular expression against which the field should
be validated. The
title
attribute should be provided when this attribute is used, to give an
indication of what is an acceptable pattern and what isn't.
placeholder
This HTML5 attribute specifies a short bit of text that is used to help the user
figure out what type of information to fill in for a form control. Likely, the text will be
placed in the field and cleared upon focus.
readonly
This attribute prevents the form control's value from being changed. Form
controls with this attribute set might receive focus from the user but should not permit the
user to modify the value. Because it receives focus, a
readonly
form control will be part of
the form's tabbing order. Finally, the control's value will be sent on form submission. Under
XHTML, the value of the
readonly
attribute should be set to
readonly
.
required
The presence of this HTML5 Boolean attribute indicates that the user is required
to provide a value for the
<textarea>
tag for the form to be submitted. User agents that
understand this should set the CSS pseudo-class
:invalid
when the field goes into error.
rows
This attribute sets the number of rows in the text area. The value of the attribute
should be a positive integer.
wrap
In some versions of Netscape (later Firefox) and Microsoft browsers, this attribute
controls word-wrap behavior. A value of
off
for the attribute forces the
<textarea>
tag
not to wrap text, so the viewer must manually enter line breaks. A value of
hard
causes
word wrap and includes line breaks in text submitted to the server. A value of
soft
causes
word wrap but removes line breaks from text submitted to the server. Internet Explorer
supports a value of
physical
, which is equivalent to Netscape's
hard
value, and a value of
virtual
, which is equivalent to Netscape's
soft
value. If the
wrap
attribute is not
