Can’t change textarea to input

[botpro7]

Hi guys, i’ve been trying to customizing this virtual keyboard but have no clue what is wrong.

If i change
<textarea id=”write” type=”password” rows=”1″ cols=”30″></textarea>
to
<input id=”write” type=”password”/> the virtual keyboard isn’t working.

Could anyone please help me how to solve this? Thanks in advanced.

Please check this out
[http://jsfiddle.net/rhXx8/2/](http://jsfiddle.net/rhXx8/2/ “Virtual Keyboard JQuery”)

[CrocoDillon]

The function changes what’s inside the element, which works for textareas but not for inputs because they are empty elements. You can set the value attribute on inputs though.

EDIT: After a quick test, setting the value attribute isn’t ideal either.

EDIT: Actually it does work, with jQuery’s `val` function (I tried `attr(‘value’)` first)

http://jsfiddle.net/rhXx8/3/

[botpro7]

thanks CrocoDillon, it works. But i don’t understand why is it input elements are empty elements? If u don’t mind could you please give me an insight or reference somewhere on the net? Thanks again :)

[CrocoDillon]

Normally elements can have other elements, text or comments inside them (between the opening and closing tags), for example `some text here` where the textarea has some text inside it. You can set whatever is inside an element with jQuery’s `.html()` function.

Input elements are empty or self-closing elements, in xhtml that would be obvious with a slash right before the right bracket ``, in html5 both with or without the slash are valid. Anyway because they are empty elements `.html()` does nothing.

Empty elements can have attributes though.

Googling I found [this short explanation](http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201005/void_empty_elements_and_self-closing_start_tags_in_html/), maybe it helps :)

[botpro7]

aha! you have enlightened me. That’s why i have to use .val to get the value out instead of .html. Thank you. :)

[CrocoDillon]

Yes, `val()` gets or sets whatever kind of value the form element is using, not sure how it works under the hood, don’t really care either… for now :)

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