Input boxes with transparent background are not clickable in IE8

Html Css Internet Explorer-8 Internet Explorer Inputbox

Html Problem Overview

I have an absolutely positioned input box in a form. The input box has transparent background:

.form-page input[type="text"] {
    border: none;
    background-color: transparent;
    /* Other stuff: font-weight, font-size */
}

Surprisingly, I cannot select this input box by clicking on it in IE8. It works perfectly in Firefox however. The same happens for background: none. When I change the background color:

    background-color: red;

It works fine, so this is issue associated with transparent background. Setting a border makes the input box selectable by clicking on its border only.

Is there a workaround to have clickable input box with transparent background working in IE8?

Update: Example. Uncomment background-color and the inputbox is selectable. You can also click on the select box, and focus the input box by pressing Shift+Tab.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html><head></head><body>

<style type="text/css">
  input[type="text"] {
    border: none;
    background: transparent;
    /*background-color: blue;*/
  }
  #elem528 { position:absolute; left:155px; top:164px; width:60px; height:20px; }
  #elem529 { position:absolute; left:218px; top:164px; width:40px; height:20px; }
</style>

<img src="xxx.png" alt="" width="1000" height="1000">
<input id="elem528" maxlength="7" type="text">
<select id="elem529"></select>

</body></html>

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

I am unable to reproduce such a problem in IE8. Full test case? Are you sure there's not a layering problem causing some other transparent element to cover the clickable area?

Does setting background-image make a difference? What about to a transparent GIF?

ETA: Curious! It's actually an IE7 bug. For me, your example exhibits the described behaviour in IE7, but in IE8 it's only when in EmulateIE7 mode; in IE8 native rendering it's fixed. You'll generally want to make sure you don't fall back to IE7 rendering by using a suitable X-UA-Compatible header/meta; however, yes, setting the background-image to a transparent GIF fixed the problem for me. Tsk, we still need the blank GIF even in this day and age, huh?

Solution 2 - Html

You have to define a (transparent) background image.

Just in case someone would be interested. One of suggested workarounds....

Solution 3 - Html

Please include the html for the input element.

How did you define the input element? The code below works in IE8 (IE 8.0.7600 Windows). I tried this in IE8 and was able to 'select' the input area just fine.

<html>

<head>

<style>
.form-page input[type="text"] {
        border: none;
        background-color: transparent;
        /* Other stuff: font-weight, font-size */
}
</style>
</head>

<body>
    
<input type="text" name="test" value="test" id="test"/>

</body>
</html>

Solution 4 - Html

Just give the input field a transparent background image and it will work...

Example:

#search .input {
width:260px;
padding:3px 5px;
border:0;
background:url(../images/trans.gif);}

Solution 5 - Html

Here is a very simple test case:

<html>
	<head>
	</head>
	<body style="direction: ltr;">
		<br/><br/><br/>
		<INPUT style="WIDTH: 100%;" />

		<DIV style="POSITION: absolute; TOP: 58px; RIGHT: 193px; WIDTH: 300px;">
			<INPUT style="WIDTH: 100%; background-color: transparent;"/>
		</DIV>
	</body>
</html>

When running in IE8 - you should see the focus on the underlying textbox instead on the absolutely positioned textbox.

Our solution was to set both transparent background color and transparent background image:

<INPUT style="WIDTH: 100%; background-color: transparent; background-image: url('transparent.gif');"/>

Solution 6 - Html

I've found the same issue using IE10 on Windows 7. Both of the following methods fixed the issue for me.

Franky's method using a transparent background image...

background:url(/images/transparent.gif);

Sketchfemme's method using an rgba background colour with '0' opacity

background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);

Jim Jeffers suggestion for editing the z-index's did not work for me.

Solution 7 - Html

IE in its infinite wisdom is deciding not to render the item because it thinks there is nothing to render. There are numerous ways to address this but basically you'll need to give IE something to chew on.

Adding a 'value=x' to the input tag itself definitely works. But more than likely it's not the best solution. A simple, color:black (without the focus) allows the element to be tabbed to. Adding ':focus' to the input style allows the element to render.

Try this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html><head></head><body>

<style type="text/css">
  input[type="text"]:focus {
    border: none;
    background: transparent;
    /*background-color: blue;*/
  }
  #elem528 { position:absolute; left:155px; top:164px; width:60px; height:20px; }
  #elem529 { position:absolute; left:218px; top:164px; width:40px; height:20px; }
</style>

<img src="xxx.png" alt="" width="1000" height="1000">
<input id="elem528" maxlength="7" type="text">
<select id="elem529"></select>

</body></html>

Solution 8 - Html

As bobince observed, it's an IE7 bug. I've sometimes found it convenient to solve it by adding a value="       ". Use as many non-breaking spaces as required to make the clickable area big enough. Depending on your app, you might need to strip these later.

Solution 9 - Html

 background-image:url(about:blank);background-color:transparent;

Solution 10 - Html

Had the similar issue -> IE8 textbox was not editable (when wrapper of my App has position:absolute). Click worked only in the border. Filled with color and transparent also did not work. With the following doctype change the issue is fixed.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

Source : http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?p=1173375#post1173375

Solution 11 - Html

Actually in my case it was like

text-indent: -9999px

I used to remove the text, do not do that and it is clickable again.

Solution 12 - Html

It may seem strange but you should try explicitly specifying the z-index of the elements involved. This should force the input to render on top of the element with the background color/image applied to it.

Solution 13 - Html

It seems though that even with the transparent gif trick, if you set background: transparent anywhere else in your CSS, for actual web browsers, it triggers the IE7 bug and you don't get a cursor on hover and can't easily click into the input box.

Solution 14 - Html

this is an awesome question. I would never have been able to figure out what was going on without this post. My solution though was to use rgba(0,0,0,0) instead of transparent gif.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Viliam	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Html	bobince	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Html	Viliam	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Html	user250120	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Html	Franky	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Html	user328508	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Html	Benjamin Walsh	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Html	user250120	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Html	miles	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Html	reyhappen	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Html	Muthukumar Arumugam	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Html	e-anima	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Html	Jim Jeffers	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Html	Crankypants	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Html	Homan	View Answer on Stackoverflow