place-holding characters in form elements

Hi all

Priority 10.4 states that form text areas should have default place-holding
characters. This is causing us some grief here because it creates a
situation where a sighted mouse-user has to deliberately delete the
place-holding characters before typing in the text area. It is highly likely
that some user will not delete but just type in the box either after, before
or in the middle of the default text. This will cause huge problems for any
form data that is inserted into databases unless we do some server side
validation and character stripping from strings. 

If the user tabs to the text area it seems that the default text is
highlighted and then overtyped but how can I make this happen with someone
who uses a mouse (without resorting to client side javascript). 

thanks

Julian

Julian Scarlett
Web Design & Document Management System Officer
PPU
Education Directorate 
Sheffield City Council

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Received on Thursday, 23 May 2002 05:36:55 UTC