How can I programmatically select a specific range of text in an HTML input field? (I don't want to select the entire field, just a subset)
Also, how can I determine the currently selected range in a field?
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You need to explain a little more about what you are trying to do.cgreeno– cgreeno2009-03-14 20:27:18 +00:00Commented Mar 14, 2009 at 20:27
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Oh, you want to select individual Chars. :/Kent Fredric– Kent Fredric2009-03-14 20:30:43 +00:00Commented Mar 14, 2009 at 20:30
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3 Answers
Here's how to select a portion of a text box (range select) and get the selected text:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title> Test </title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload = function() {
var message = document.getElementById('message');
// Select a portion of text
createSelection(message, 0, 5);
// get the selected portion of text
var selectedText = message.value.substring(message.selectionStart, message.selectionEnd);
alert(selectedText);
};
function createSelection(field, start, end) {
if( field.createTextRange ) {
var selRange = field.createTextRange();
selRange.collapse(true);
selRange.moveStart('character', start);
selRange.moveEnd('character', end);
selRange.select();
field.focus();
} else if( field.setSelectionRange ) {
field.focus();
field.setSelectionRange(start, end);
} else if( typeof field.selectionStart != 'undefined' ) {
field.selectionStart = start;
field.selectionEnd = end;
field.focus();
}
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<input type="text" name="message" id="message" value="Hello World" />
</body>
</html>
1 Comment
mkoryak
There are 2 bugs here. 1. you need to focus before calling
setSelectionRange or nothing will be selected. 2. the 3rd if statement should be else if( typeof field.selectionStart != 'undefined' ) because field.selectionStart can evaluate to 0 which is falsySmall correction. It seems that IE moveEnd() method moves incrementally so selRange.moveEnd('character', end) should be replaced with selRange.moveEnd('character', end-start):
function createSelection(field, start, end) {
if( field.createTextRange ) {
var selRange = field.createTextRange();
selRange.collapse(true);
selRange.moveStart('character', start);
selRange.moveEnd('character', end-start);
selRange.select();
} else if( field.setSelectionRange ) {
field.setSelectionRange(start, end);
} else if( field.selectionStart ) {
field.selectionStart = start;
field.selectionEnd = end;
}
field.focus();
}
Comments
Thank you! I wanna share my function now, it's used in Ajaxel CMS along with Instant messenger
,wrapText:function(o, ot, ct) {
var s = o[0].selectionStart;
var e = o[0].selectionEnd;
o.val(o.val().substring(0, s)+ot+o.val().substring(s,e)+ct+o.val().substring(e, o.val().length));
if (o[0].createTextRange){
var sr = o[0].createTextRange();
sr.collapse(true);
sr.moveStart('character', s);
sr.moveEnd('character',e-s+ot.length+ct.length);
sr.select();
}
else if(o[0].setSelectionRange){
o[0].setSelectionRange(s,e+ot.length+ct.length);
}
else if(o[0].selectionStart){
o[0].selectionStart=s;
o[0].selectionEnd=e+ot.length+ct.length;
}
}
