The default searchform.tmpl looks rather bare and unintuitive with just an input field. The patch below adds a label for the field to improve usability: --- templates/searchform.tmpl.orig Fri Jun 15 15:02:34 2007 +++ templates/searchform.tmpl Fri Jun 15 15:02:41 2007 @@ -1,5 +1,6 @@ <form method="get" action="<TMPL_VAR SEARCHACTION>" id="searchform"> <div> +<label for="phrase">Search:</label> <input type="text" name="phrase" value="" size="16" /> <input type="hidden" name="enc" value="UTF-8" /> <input type="hidden" name="do" value="hyperestraier" /> > I don't do this by default because putting in the label feels to me make > the action bar too wide. YMMV. What I'd really like to do is make the > _content_ of the search field say "search". You see that on some other > sites, but so far the only way I've seen to do it is by inserting a > nasty lump of javascript. --[[Joey]] >> Please don't do that, it is a bad idea on so many levels :) See e.g. >> <http://universalusability.com/access_by_design/forms/auto.html> for >> an explanation why. --[[HenrikBrixAndersen]] >>> If you really want to do this, this is one way: --- searchform.tmpl.orig Sat Aug 25 11:54:28 2007 +++ searchform.tmpl Sat Aug 25 11:56:19 2007 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ <form method="get" action="<TMPL_VAR SEARCHACTION>" id="searchform"> <div> -<input type="text" name="phrase" value="" size="16" /> +<input type="text" name="phrase" value="Search" size="16" onfocus="this.value=''" /> <input type="hidden" name="enc" value="UTF-8" /> <input type="hidden" name="do" value="hyperestraier" /> </div> > That's both nasty javascript and fails if javascript is disabled. :-) > What I'd really like is a proper search label that appears above the > input box. There is free whitespace there, except for pages with very > long titles. Would someone like to figure out the CSS to make that > happen? > > The tricky thing is that the actual html for the form needs to > still come after the page title, not before it. Because the first thing > a non-css browser should show is the page title. But the only way I know > to get it to appear higher up is to put it first, or to use Evil absolute > positioning. (CSS sucks.) --[[Joey]] > Update: html5 allows just adding `placeholder="Search"` to the input > element. already works in eg, chromium. However, ikiwiki does not use > html5 yet. --[[Joey]] [[!tag wishlist html5]]