Show placeholder text in ruby on rails password field tags

Question

In Ruby on Rails, I have the line

<td><%= text_field_tag(:email, "email") %></td>

which places the word "e-mail" in the box where e-mail is supposed to go. This is exactly what I want, as it saves space. However, when I do this:

<td><%= password_field_tag(:password, "password") %></td>

The text is just a bunch of dots. I want the text to say password, but when the user fills it in I want dots to appear. Facebook does exactly what I want here https://www.facebook.com.

Could someone please tell me how to accomplish writing the word "password" visibly in the password field box yet having the password appear dotted-out when the user actually goes to fill it in?

Answer 1

You need to set the placeholder attribute, not the value attribute:

<td><%= password_field_tag(:password, "", placeholder: "Password") %></td>

You should do the same thing for your email field. Don't set the value of the element, set a placeholder and let the browser render it specifically as a placeholder.

The actual textual value of the password field will always render as dots or asterisks, regardless of whether you set it via script or the user types it.