jQuery show password toggle

Oct 19, 2010 javascript jquery
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More and more people are requesting that their passwords not be masked - or that they have the option to toggle them. If the visitor is using Firefox, this has been a relatively easy feat. Simply add a checkbox and change the input type on click. However, in “secure” browsers like IE, yes the security of Internet Explorer, won’t allow you to do this.

The solution is simple: Make a dupe of the element but make it from scratch. Instead of having type password, have type text. Tie this to a checkbox and you’re good to go. In my solution (which I can’t help but feel I’ve adapted from somewhere… but I can’t just remember where the original code idea came from), I automatically find inputs with a specific class, and add a checkbox to show the password. This way, it doesn’t happen to all of them - yet it is still relatively automatic for those that need it.

For testing, I submit this HTML code. (Note: the CSS for the password box is there so you can verify that the box still looks the same when you change types).

<html>
  <head>
    <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <style type="text/css">
      #password {
        border: 1px solid #f00;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <input class="showpassword" type="password" name="password" id="password"></input>
  </body>
</html>

Now, the javascript is pretty simple. Just find the class, grab the input, and add a checkbox after it. The checkbox will then, once clicked, remove that input and add in the opposite input type.

$(function() {
  $(".showpassword").each(function(index,input) {
    var $input = $(input);
    $('<label class="showpasswordlabel"></label>').append(
      $("<input type="checkbox" class="showpasswordcheckbox"></input>").click(function() {
        var change = $(this).is(":checked") ? "text" : "password";
        var rep = $("<input type="" + change + ""></input>")
            .attr("id", $input.attr("id"))
            .attr("name", $input.attr("name"))
            .attr('class', $input.attr('class'))
            .val($input.val())
            .insertBefore($input);
        $input.remove();
        $input = rep;
      })
    ).append($("<span></span>").text("Show password")).insertAfter($input);
  });
});
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