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]]