Autofocus Form Field, Ready to Type

It is easy to automatically make a specific form field ready to type when a web page loads — so you don't have to tap on it first.

This is how easy it is: Put the autofocus attributer into the source code of the form field.

When the page loads, the form field will have focus. If the page needs to scroll to where the form field is visible in the browser window, it will.

The person can immediately start typing.

Here is example code for an input field:

<input type="text" autofocus>

This text field is a demonstration. When you first loaded the web page into your browser, the field will have had focus and let you go ahead and type something.

And here is example code for a textarea field:

<textarea autofocus style="width:100%; height:1in;"></textarea>

Only one form field at a time can have focus. If there is more than one form field with the autofocus attribute, the first on the page is the one that will have focus.

(This content first appeared in Possibilities newsletter.)

Will Bontrager