Placeholder text should remain until typing actually starts

[Cody Garver]

BECAUSE REASONS

[Cassidy James Blaede (cassidyjames)]

Agree 100%. I think I files a bug way back against Granite, but it's relying on GTK's upstream implementation of Hint Text iirc.

[Cassidy James Blaede (cassidyjames)]

As a note, this is how WebKit handles it in HTML5 and how Android handles it in its UI. Not sure about iOS, but someone could look at an iOS device for me. ;) Not to say "everyone else is doing it so we should too," but it helps to negate the "well, people will think there's text in there" argument.

[Cassidy James Blaede (cassidyjames)]

The pervasiveness of this behavior across platforms demonstrates it is what users will expect. In addition, the fact that text entries that have the initial focus cannot reliably use placeholder text (and therefor must use UI-cluttering labels or focus hacks) demonstrates that this is an legitimate and important bug.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Well, I always think there's text in there if it doesn't go away on focus. I can't see how "others are doing it" negates that.

[Cassidy James Blaede (cassidyjames)]

There's actually a GTK patch attached to the upstream bug if someone wanted to tackle this as an OS patch. ;)

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667502#attachment_table

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

Oops, should have read the comments.

Cody, do we want to do this as an OS patch or should we mark it won't fix?

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I don't think it's wise to take up patching GTK, especially so late in the cycle and without sufficient testing infrastructure. Won't fix it is.