HTML5 autofocus Attribute

Discussion

1. John Long

   For those interested, autofocus is currently not supported in Safari Mobile for iOS 5.x or Android’s browser app (2.3 and below, not sure on support in newer versions).

   Information found at http://wufoo.com/html5/attributes/02-autofocus.html
2. jonathan 2 M

   Also READONLY is a funny attribute for input, it disallow the input to be writtable.
3. Jason Merino

   I just did a little testing and Chrome actually focuses on elements that have the autofocus attribute and are injected via JavaScript… But FF and IE don’t.

   Not sure if that’s part of the spec or not, but it’s there.
4. David

   You’re always full of “nice to know” stuff that we can use in our everyday coding. Thanks!
5. Petr Jirasek

   The implementation of the feature is a little “magical” in some browsers, but I hope it will be all right in future.
6. Will Woodward

   In fact, it’s even simpler than that! Rather than using an attribute you can use a flag with the HTML5 doctype:

   Hi!
7. Will Woodward

   In fact, it’s even simpler than that! Rather than using an attribute you can use a flag with the HTML5 doctype:

   
Hi!

8. Will Woodward

   Sorry, tried wrapping it in code tag but to no avail!
9. Andrea Giammarchi

   The historical problem with autofocus is that it acts on “load” event. If in the meanwhile you started interacting with the browser url bar or any other input in the page, it moves the focus away and you gonna end up writing shenanigans. As example, you start typing your password in input 2 but the page set autofocus on input 1 … when the focus is stolen from input 2 you might end up writing amd showing to everyone your password without realizing the focus changed.

   Unless browsers vendors implement a way to prevent this, as soon as the user start interacting with the page the autofocus attribute should be removed.

   !function(html, autofocus){
   function drop() {
     for(i = 0; i < event.length; html.removeEventListener(event[i++], drop, true));
     document.querySelector(
       "[" + autofocus + "=" + autofocus + "]"
     ).removeAttribute(autofocus);
   }
   for(var
     event = "touchstart mousedown scrool mousewheel".split(" "), // etc
     i = 0; i < event.length; i++
   ) {
     html.addEventListener(event[i], drop, true);
   }
   }(document.documentElement, "autofocus");
   

   or something like that …
10. Tomek Sułkowski

    However I personally don’t like autofocus on certain sites – and it especially annoy me at Google’s homepage – because it messes up a possibility to return to previous page with the [backspace].
• Alex

  Alt + Left/Right

  Hope Gnome would accept the same shortcuts…
11. Rusty

    @Andrea Giammarchi – which browsers in your opinion implement autofocus in onload? Tried in FF, Chrome and Opera, autofocus activates immediately. IE doesn’t support autofocus at all. So I’m curious to know which browser implements it incorrectly that would require your workaround.
12. Jeff

    Rusty, try http://caniuse.com
13. Cubicle Ninjas

    Little tips like this make a huge difference in day-to-day development!
14. Felipe N. Moura

    Hi,

    I have an input type=number, which should be focused when the page loads…it works just fine in my desktop browser, but in my mobile device, it doesn’t! I mean, once the page loads, it should focus the input and show the virtual(touchable) keyboard(better fit for numbers), but the keyboard is not shown!
    even if I try to focus it via javascript using the page load event, it doesn’t work :/
    the weird thing is that, if I change the input type to text, it works!

    any idea?!
15. patomas

    Hi

    Has anybody ever had the need to change the focus of an input field on load? If, have you considered that the form could have been badly designed?

    Bye
16. federico lanusse

    Note for the security pen testers (like I’m), the combination of onfocus + autofocus open a new territory for XSS’s attacks
17. Jim Ord

    Sorry, my badx2! Let’s try again …
    I’m looking for a solution to this dilemma …
    When autofocus is used on a form input element on a one-page site (using section navigation), autofocus is never implemented (or should I say “is lost”) because the user changed the focus when he clicked a menu tag in the header …
18. Haseeb

    HTML autofocus attribute is normally applied to form first input element to attract user’s for input or get the focus.

    http://www.thesstech.com/tryme?filename=autofocus
19. Gokul

    autofocus on textarea is not working in Firefox it seems..!! Any idea why?
20. Vuong

    Not sure why sometimes it does not work on Chrome :-(.
21. Alex

    Woot! This is indeed awesomeness!