Cross-browser solution to change the 'type' attribute of an `<input/>` tag. Edited to work in Drupal.

changeTypeAttr.js

/* id is the id tag of <input/> element
   type is the type you want to change it to.
   jQuery is required and assumed to be the jQuery variable */
function changeType(id, type) {
    var x = jQuery("#"+id);
    if(x.attr('type') == type)
        return x; //That was easy.
    try {
        return x.attr('type', type); //Stupid IE security will not allow this
    } catch(e) {
        //Try re-creating the element (yep... this sucks)
        //jQuery has no html() method for the element, so we have to put into a div first
        var html = jQuery("<div>").append(x.clone()).html();
        var regex = /type=(\")?([^\"\s]+)(\")?/; //matches type=text or type="text"
        //If no match, we add the type attribute to the end; otherwise, we replace
        var tmp = jQuery(html.match(regex) == null ?
            html.replace(">", ' type="' + type + '">') :
            html.replace(regex, 'type="' + type + '"') );
        //Copy data from old element
        tmp.data('type', x.data('type') );
        var events = x.data('events');
        var cb = function(events) {
            return function() {
                //Bind all prior events
                for(i in events)
                {
                    var y = events[i];
                    for(j in y)
                        tmp.bind(i, y[j].handler);
                }
            }
        }(events);
        x.replaceWith(tmp);
        setTimeout(cb, 10); //Wait a bit to call function
        return tmp;
    }
}