HTML input onfocus & onblur?

You want this

<input ...
onfocus="if (this.value==this.defaultValue) this.value = ''"
onblur="if (this.value=='') this.value = this.defaultValue" />

Update: Some newer browsers will do what you want simply by adding the placeholder attribute:

<input placeholder="Please enter your name" />

Here is the PHP according to your code

echo <<<END
<label for="$name">$lable</label>
<input type="$type" name="$name" id="$name" value="$value" 
 onfocus="if (this.value==this.defaultValue) this.value = ''" 
 onblur="if (this.value=='') this.value = this.defaultValue"/>
END;

Looking at the source for this page shows the following

<form id="search" action="/search" method="get"> 
  <div> 
     <input name="q" class="textbox" tabindex="1" 
     onfocus="if (this.value=='search') this.value = ''" 
     type="text" maxlength="80" size="28" value="search"> 
  </div>