What is the best way (and I presume simplest way) to place the cursor at the end of the text in a input text element via JavaScript - after focus has been set to the element?
There's a simple way to get it working in most browsers.
this.selectionStart = this.selectionEnd = this.value.length;
However, due to the *quirks of a few browsers, a more inclusive answer looks more like this
setTimeout(function(){ that.selectionStart = that.selectionEnd = 10000; }, 0);
Using jQuery (to set the listener, but it's not necessary otherwise)
$('#el').focus(function(){
var that = this;
setTimeout(function(){ that.selectionStart = that.selectionEnd = 10000; }, 0);
});
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<input id='el' type='text' value='put cursor at end'>
Using Vanilla JS (borrowing addEvent function from this answer)
// Basic cross browser addEvent
function addEvent(elem, event, fn){
if(elem.addEventListener){
elem.addEventListener(event, fn, false);
}else{
elem.attachEvent("on" + event,
function(){ return(fn.call(elem, window.event)); });
}}
var element = document.getElementById('el');
addEvent(element,'focus',function(){
var that = this;
setTimeout(function(){ that.selectionStart = that.selectionEnd = 10000; }, 0);
});
<input id='el' type='text' value='put cursor at end'>
Quirks
Chrome has an odd quirk where the focus event fires before the cursor is moved into the field; which screws my simple solution up. Two options to fix this:
You can add a timeout of 0 ms (to defer the operation until the stack is clear)
You can change the event from focus to mouseup. This would be pretty annoying for the user unless you still kept track of focus. I'm not really in love with either of these options.
Also, #vladkras pointed out that some older versions of Opera incorrectly calculate the length when it has spaces. For this you can use a huge number that should be larger than your string.
Try this, it has worked for me:
//input is the input element
input.focus(); //sets focus to element
var val = this.input.value; //store the value of the element
this.input.value = ''; //clear the value of the element
this.input.value = val; //set that value back.
For the cursor to be move to the end, the input has to have focus first, then when the value is changed it will goto the end. If you set .value to the same, it won't change in chrome.
I faced this same issue (after setting focus through RJS/prototype) in IE.
Firefox was already leaving the cursor at the end when there is already a value for the field. IE was forcing the cursor to the beginning of the text.
The solution I arrived at is as follows:
<input id="search" type="text" value="mycurrtext" size="30"
onfocus="this.value = this.value;" name="search"/>
This works in both IE7 and FF3 but doesn't work in modern browsers (see comments) as it is not specified that UA must overwrite the value in this case (edited in accordance with meta policy).
After hacking around with this a bit, I found the best way was to use the setSelectionRange function if the browser supports it; if not, revert to using the method in Mike Berrow's answer (i.e. replace the value with itself).
I'm also setting scrollTop to a high value in case we're in a vertically-scrollable textarea. (Using an arbitrary high value seems more reliable than $(this).height() in Firefox and Chrome.)
I've made it is as a jQuery plugin. (If you're not using jQuery I trust you can still get the gist easily enough.)
I've tested in IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 3.5.5, Google Chrome 3.0, Safari 4.0.4, Opera 10.00.
It's available on jquery.com as the PutCursorAtEnd plugin. For your convenience, the code for release 1.0 is as follows:
// jQuery plugin: PutCursorAtEnd 1.0
// http://plugins.jquery.com/project/PutCursorAtEnd
// by teedyay
//
// Puts the cursor at the end of a textbox/ textarea
// codesnippet: 691e18b1-f4f9-41b4-8fe8-bc8ee51b48d4
(function($)
{
jQuery.fn.putCursorAtEnd = function()
{
return this.each(function()
{
$(this).focus()
// If this function exists...
if (this.setSelectionRange)
{
// ... then use it
// (Doesn't work in IE)
// Double the length because Opera is inconsistent about whether a carriage return is one character or two. Sigh.
var len = $(this).val().length * 2;
this.setSelectionRange(len, len);
}
else
{
// ... otherwise replace the contents with itself
// (Doesn't work in Google Chrome)
$(this).val($(this).val());
}
// Scroll to the bottom, in case we're in a tall textarea
// (Necessary for Firefox and Google Chrome)
this.scrollTop = 999999;
});
};
})(jQuery);
<script type="text/javascript">
function SetEnd(txt) {
if (txt.createTextRange) {
//IE
var FieldRange = txt.createTextRange();
FieldRange.moveStart('character', txt.value.length);
FieldRange.collapse();
FieldRange.select();
}
else {
//Firefox and Opera
txt.focus();
var length = txt.value.length;
txt.setSelectionRange(length, length);
}
}
</script>
This function works for me in IE9, Firefox 6.x, and Opera 11.x
It's 2019 and none of the methods above worked for me, but this one did, taken from https://css-tricks.com/snippets/javascript/move-cursor-to-end-of-input/
function moveCursorToEnd(id) {
var el = document.getElementById(id)
el.focus()
if (typeof el.selectionStart == "number") {
el.selectionStart = el.selectionEnd = el.value.length;
} else if (typeof el.createTextRange != "undefined") {
var range = el.createTextRange();
range.collapse(false);
range.select();
}
}
<input id="myinput" type="text" />
Move cursor to end
I've tried the following with quite great success in chrome
$("input.focus").focus(function () {
var val = this.value,
$this = $(this);
$this.val("");
setTimeout(function () {
$this.val(val);
}, 1);
});
Quick rundown:
It takes every input field with the class focus on it, then stores the old value of the input field in a variable, afterwards it applies the empty string to the input field.
Then it waits 1 milisecond and puts in the old value again.
el.setSelectionRange(-1, -1);
https://codesandbox.io/s/peaceful-bash-x2mti
This method updates the HTMLInputElement.selectionStart, selectionEnd,
and selectionDirection properties in one call.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLInputElement/setSelectionRange
In other js methods -1 usually means (to the) last character. This is the case for this one too, but I couldn't find explicit mention of this behavior in the docs.
Simple. When editing or changing values, first put the focus then set value.
$("#catg_name").focus();
$("#catg_name").val(catg_name);
Still the intermediate variable is needed, (see var val=)
else the cursor behaves strange, we need it at the end.
<body onload="document.getElementById('userinput').focus();">
<form>
<input id="userinput" onfocus="var val=this.value; this.value=''; this.value= val;"
class=large type="text" size="10" maxlength="50" value="beans" name="myinput">
</form>
</body>
const end = input.value.length
input.setSelectionRange(end, end)
// 👇 scroll to the bottom if a textarea has long text
input.focus()
Try this one works with Vanilla JavaScript.
<input type="text" id="yourId" onfocus="let value = this.value; this.value = null; this.value=value" name="nameYouWant" class="yourClass" value="yourValue" placeholder="yourPlaceholder...">
In Js
document.getElementById("yourId").focus()
For all browsers for all cases:
function moveCursorToEnd(el) {
window.setTimeout(function () {
if (typeof el.selectionStart == "number") {
el.selectionStart = el.selectionEnd = el.value.length;
} else if (typeof el.createTextRange != "undefined") {
var range = el.createTextRange();
range.collapse(false);
range.select();
}
}, 1);
}
Timeout required if you need to move cursor from onFocus event handler
I like the accepted answer a lot, but it stopped working in Chrome. In Chrome, for the cursor to go to the end, input value needs to change. The solution is as follow:
<input id="search" type="text" value="mycurrtext" size="30"
onfocus="var value = this.value; this.value = null; this.value = value;" name="search"/>
document.querySelector('input').addEventListener('focus', e => {
const { value } = e.target;
e.target.setSelectionRange(value.length, value.length);
});
<input value="my text" />
In jQuery, that's
$(document).ready(function () {
$('input').focus(function () {
$(this).attr('value',$(this).attr('value'));
}
}
I just found that in iOS, setting textarea.textContent property will place the cursor at the end of the text in the textarea element every time. The behavior was a bug in my app, but seems to be something that you could use intentionally.
This problem is interesting. The most confusing thing about it is that no solution I found solved the problem completely.
+++++++ SOLUTION +++++++
You need a JS function, like this:
function moveCursorToEnd(obj) {
if (!(obj.updating)) {
obj.updating = true;
var oldValue = obj.value;
obj.value = '';
setTimeout(function(){ obj.value = oldValue; obj.updating = false; }, 100);
}
}
You need to call this guy in the onfocus and onclick events.
<input type="text" value="Test Field" onfocus="moveCursorToEnd(this)" onclick="moveCursorToEnd(this)">
IT WORKS ON ALL DEVICES AN BROWSERS!!!!
var valsrch = $('#search').val();
$('#search').val('').focus().val(valsrch);
Taking some of the answers .. making a single-line jquery.
$('#search').focus().val($('#search').val());
If the input field just needs a static default value I usually do this with jQuery:
$('#input').focus().val('Default value');
This seems to work in all browsers.
While this may be an old question with lots of answers, I ran across a similar issue and none of the answers were quite what I wanted and/or were poorly explained. The issue with selectionStart and selectionEnd properties is that they don't exist for input type number (while the question was asked for text type, I reckon it might help others who might have other input types that they need to focus). So if you don't know whether the input type the function will focus is a type number or not, you cannot use that solution.
The solution that works cross browser and for all input types is rather simple:
get and store the value of input in a variable
focus the input
set the value of input to the stored value
That way the cursor is at the end of the input element.
So all you'd do is something like this (using jquery, provided the element selector that one wishes to focus is accessible via 'data-focus-element' data attribute of the clicked element and the function executes after clicking on '.foo' element):
$('.foo').click(function() {
element_selector = $(this).attr('data-focus-element');
$focus = $(element_selector);
value = $focus.val();
$focus.focus();
$focus.val(value);
});
Why does this work? Simply, when the .focus() is called, the focus will be added to the beginning of the input element (which is the core problem here), ignoring the fact, that the input element already has a value in it. However, when the value of an input is changed, the cursor is automatically placed at the end of the value inside input element. So if you override the value with the same value that had been previously entered in the input, the value will look untouched, the cursor will, however, move to the end.
Super easy (you may have to focus on the input element)
inputEl = getElementById('inputId');
var temp = inputEl.value;
inputEl.value = '';
inputEl.value = temp;
Set the cursor when click on text area to the end of text...
Variation of this code is...ALSO works! for Firefox, IE, Safari, Chrome..
In server-side code:
txtAddNoteMessage.Attributes.Add("onClick", "sendCursorToEnd('" & txtAddNoteMessage.ClientID & "');")
In Javascript:
function sendCursorToEnd(obj) {
var value = $(obj).val(); //store the value of the element
var message = "";
if (value != "") {
message = value + "\n";
};
$(obj).focus().val(message);
$(obj).unbind();
}
If you set the value first and then set the focus, the cursor will always appear at the end.
$("#search-button").click(function (event) {
event.preventDefault();
$('#textbox').val('this');
$("#textbox").focus();
return false;
});
Here is the fiddle to test
https://jsfiddle.net/5on50caf/1/
I wanted to put cursor at the end of a "div" element where contenteditable = true, and I got a solution with Xeoncross code:
<input type="button" value="Paste HTML" onclick="document.getElementById('test').focus(); pasteHtmlAtCaret('<b>INSERTED</b>'); ">
<div id="test" contenteditable="true">
Here is some nice text
</div>
And this function do magic:
function pasteHtmlAtCaret(html) {
var sel, range;
if (window.getSelection) {
// IE9 and non-IE
sel = window.getSelection();
if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
range = sel.getRangeAt(0);
range.deleteContents();
// Range.createContextualFragment() would be useful here but is
// non-standard and not supported in all browsers (IE9, for one)
var el = document.createElement("div");
el.innerHTML = html;
var frag = document.createDocumentFragment(), node, lastNode;
while ( (node = el.firstChild) ) {
lastNode = frag.appendChild(node);
}
range.insertNode(frag);
// Preserve the selection
if (lastNode) {
range = range.cloneRange();
range.setStartAfter(lastNode);
range.collapse(true);
sel.removeAllRanges();
sel.addRange(range);
}
}
} else if (document.selection && document.selection.type != "Control") {
// IE < 9
document.selection.createRange().pasteHTML(html);
}
}
Works fine for most browsers, please check it, this code puts text and put focus at the end of the text in div element (not input element)
https://jsfiddle.net/Xeoncross/4tUDk/
Thanks, Xeoncross
I also faced same problem. Finally this gonna work for me:
jQuery.fn.putCursorAtEnd = = function() {
return this.each(function() {
// Cache references
var $el = $(this),
el = this;
// Only focus if input isn't already
if (!$el.is(":focus")) {
$el.focus();
}
// If this function exists... (IE 9+)
if (el.setSelectionRange) {
// Double the length because Opera is inconsistent about whether a carriage return is one character or two.
var len = $el.val().length * 2;
// Timeout seems to be required for Blink
setTimeout(function() {
el.setSelectionRange(len, len);
}, 1);
} else {
// As a fallback, replace the contents with itself
// Doesn't work in Chrome, but Chrome supports setSelectionRange
$el.val($el.val());
}
// Scroll to the bottom, in case we're in a tall textarea
// (Necessary for Firefox and Chrome)
this.scrollTop = 999999;
});
};
This is how we can call this:
var searchInput = $("#searchInputOrTextarea");
searchInput
.putCursorAtEnd() // should be chainable
.on("focus", function() { // could be on any event
searchInput.putCursorAtEnd()
});
It's works for me in safari, IE, Chrome, Mozilla. On mobile devices I didn't tried this.
Check this solution!
//fn setCurPosition
$.fn.setCurPosition = function(pos) {
this.focus();
this.each(function(index, elem) {
if (elem.setSelectionRange) {
elem.setSelectionRange(pos, pos);
} else if (elem.createTextRange) {
var range = elem.createTextRange();
range.collapse(true);
range.moveEnd('character', pos);
range.moveStart('character', pos);
range.select();
}
});
return this;
};
// USAGE - Set Cursor ends
$('#str1').setCurPosition($('#str1').val().length);
// USAGE - Set Cursor at 7 position
// $('#str2').setCurPosition(7);
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<p>Set cursor at any position</p>
<p><input type="text" id="str1" value="my string here" /></p>
<p><input type="text" id="str2" value="my string here" /></p>
I took the best answers from here, and created a function that works well in Chrome.
You will need to wrap the logic in a timeout, because you have to wait for the focus to finish before accessing the selection
To place the cursor at the end, the selection start needs to be placed at the end
In order to scroll to the end of the input field, the scrollLeft needs to match the scrollWidth
/**
* Upon focus, set the cursor to the end of the text input
* #param {HTMLInputElement} inputEl - An HTML <input> element
*/
const setFocusEnd = (inputEl) => {
setTimeout(() => {
const { scrollWidth, value: { length } } = inputEl;
inputEl.setSelectionRange(length, length);
inputEl.scrollLeft = scrollWidth;
}, 0);
};
document
.querySelector('input')
.addEventListener('focus', (e) => setFocusEnd(e.target));
html, body {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
margin: 0;
}
body {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
}
input:focus {
background-color: hsla(240, 100%, 95%, 1.0);
}
<input
type="text"
placeholder="Search..."
value="This is some really, really long text">
<input id="input_1">
<input id="input_2" type="hidden">
<script type="text/javascript">
//save input_1 value to input_2
$("#input_2").val($("#input_1").val());
//empty input_1 and add the saved input_2 into input_1
$("#input_1").val("").val($("#input_2").val()).focus();
</script>
I have a textarea and a div with values. When I click on a value I insert it into textarea. I need it to be inserted where my cursor was in textarea. Why do I say WAS? Because when I move it out and click on a value to insert, I assume it looses focus in the text area.
So, my question is, is there a way to "remember" the latest cursor position within textarea and then insert my values at that position?
Perhaps it could be a char number in a string?.. Currently I add it like this:
input.val( function( i, val ) { return val + " " + myInsert + " "; } );
Also I use jQuery, perhaps I could use it?
I've written a cross-browser jQuery plug-in for dealing with the caret/selection in textareas and text inputs called Rangy inputs (terrible name, I really should think of a better one). A combination of methods from this and the techniques in Edgar Villegas Alvarado's answer should do the trick, although in IE, the focusout event fires too late and you'll need to use the proprietary beforedeactivate event instead:
var $textBox = $("#foo");
function saveSelection(){
$textBox.data("lastSelection", $textBox.getSelection());
}
$textBox.focusout(saveSelection);
$textBox.bind("beforedeactivate", function() {
saveSelection();
$textBox.unbind("focusout");
});
When inserting text later, the following will insert text at the previous cursor position (or overwrite the previously selected text, if the user had selected any):
var selection = $textBox.data("lastSelection");
$textBox.focus();
$textBox.setSelection(selection.start, selection.end);
$textBox.replaceSelectedText("Some new text");
See jsFiddle example here: http://jsfiddle.net/rQXrJ/1/
Here is a working example of what you are trying to do check it out at:
http://jsfiddle.net/J5Z2n/1/
Hello there my good friend....
how do you do
the jQuery:
function insertAt (myField, myValue, startSel, endSel) {
if (startSel || startSel == '0') {
var startPos = startSel;
var endPos = endSel;
myField.val(myField.val().substring(0, startPos)+ myValue+ myField.val().substring(endPos, myField.val().length));
}
else {
myField.val() += myValue;
}
}
// calling the function
var targetBox = $('textarea#insert'),
startSel,
endSel;
targetBox.bind('focusout', function() {
//insertAtCursor(this, 'how do you do');
startSel = this.selectionStart;
endSel = this.selectionEnd;
});
$("#myvalue").click(function() {
var myValue = $(this).text();
insertAt(targetBox, myValue, startSel, endSel);
});
The original function was borrowed from this post
http://alexking.org/blog/2003/06/02/inserting-at-the-cursor-using-javascript
That should give you a solid head start I hope. Cheers
If the caret (the cursor) is somewhere in the text field, it registers in Javascript as an empty selection. That is, the selectionStart and selectionEnd attributes are the same. You can use those attributes to detect the position of the caret.
Apparently selectionStart and selectionEnd are quite useful here. Check this out:
http://www.scottklarr.com/topic/425/how-to-insert-text-into-a-textarea-where-the-cursor-is/
You can use the jQuery Caret plugin to get/set the cursor position .
Example usage:
var cursorPosition = $("#textbox").caret().start);
You could 'store' this position like this:
$("#textbox").focusout(function(){
var cursorPosition = $(this).caret().start);
$(this).data("lastCursorPos", cursorPosition);
});
To retrieve it (on your div click event), do this:
var lastCursorPosition = $("#textbox").data("lastCursorPos");
Hope this helps. Cheers
I have a textarea with lots and lots of text:
<textarea cols="50" rows="10" id="txt">lots and lots of text goes here</textarea>
I want to scroll the textarea down, so the user can see 2000-th character. How can I do this using javasctipt/jQuery?
$('#txt').scrollToCharNo(2000); // something like this would be great
EDIT (my solution)
Well, I managed to make it work myself. The only way I found, is to create a DIV with the same font and width as the textarea, put a SPAN near the needed character and find the position of that span.
I am sure, that somebody might find my solution useful, so i'll paste it here:
jQuery.fn.scrollToText = function(search) {
// getting given textarea contents
var text = $(this).text();
// number of charecter we want to show
var charNo = text.indexOf(search);
// this SPAN will allow up to determine given charecter position
var anch = '<span id="anch"></span>';
// inserting it after the character into the text
text = text.substring(0, charNo) + anch + text.substring(charNo);
// creating a DIV that is an exact copy of textarea
var copyDiv = $('<div></div>')
.append(text.replace(/\n/g, '<br />')) // making newlines look the same
.css('width', $(this).attr('clientWidth')) // width without scrollbar
.css('font-size', $(this).css('font-size'))
.css('font-family', $(this).css('font-family'))
.css('padding', $(this).css('padding'));
// inserting new div after textarea - this is needed beacuse .position() wont work on invisible elements
copyDiv.insertAfter($(this));
// what is the position on SPAN relative to parent DIV?
var pos = copyDiv.find('SPAN#anch').offset().top - copyDiv.find('SPAN#anch').closest('DIV').offset().top;
// the text we are interested in should be at the middle of textearea when scrolling is done
pos = pos - Math.round($(this).attr('clientHeight') / 2);
// now, we know where to scroll!
$(this).scrollTop(pos);
// no need for DIV anymore
copyDiv.remove();
};
$(function (){
$('#scroll_button').click(
function() {
// scrolling to "FIND ME" using function written above
$('#txt').scrollToText('FIND ME');
return false;
}
);
});
Here is a demo (it works!): http://jsfiddle.net/KrVJP/
Since none of the answers actually solved the problem, I'll accept experimentX's one: thank you for putting an effort to help me, I appreciate it!
I am not sure if it will work. Please also check it here. It's seems working for 2000th, 1500th, and 1000th position.
EDIT confused font-size or line-height ???
$(function (){
var height = 2000/$('#txt').attr('cols');
$('#txt').scrollTop(height*13);
$('#txt').selectRange(2000,2000); //this is just to check
});
$.fn.selectRange = function(start, end) { //this is just to check
return this.each(function() {
if (this.setSelectionRange) {
this.focus();
this.setSelectionRange(start, end);
} else if (this.createTextRange) {
var range = this.createTextRange();
range.collapse(true);
range.moveEnd('character', end);
range.moveStart('character', start);
range.select();
}
});
};
UPDATE How about this one
var height = 1200/$('#txt').attr('cols');
var line_ht = $('#txt').css('line-height');
line_ht = line_ht.replace('px','');
height = height*line_ht;
You can use this jquery plugin
I currently have a textarea which I requires control over text that has been pasted in,
essentially I need to be able to take whatever the user wants to paste into a textarea and place it into a variable.
I will then work out the position in which they pasted the text and the size of the string to remove it from the textarea,
Then at the end deal with the text thats is in the variable in my own way.
My question: how would I go about getting a copy of the text in a variable that was just pasted in by the user?
Thanks.
I answered a similar question a few days ago: Detect pasted text with ctrl+v or right click -> paste. This time I've included quite a long function that accurately gets selection boundaries in textarea in IE; the rest is relatively simple.
You can use the paste event to detect the paste in most browsers (notably not Firefox 2 though). When you handle the paste event, record the current selection, and then set a brief timer that calls a function after the paste has completed. This function can then compare lengths to know where to look for the pasted content. Something like the following:
function getSelectionBoundary(el, start) {
var property = start ? "selectionStart" : "selectionEnd";
var originalValue, textInputRange, precedingRange, pos, bookmark, isAtEnd;
if (typeof el[property] == "number") {
return el[property];
} else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
el.focus();
var range = document.selection.createRange();
if (range) {
// Collapse the selected range if the selection is not a caret
if (document.selection.type == "Text") {
range.collapse(!!start);
}
originalValue = el.value;
textInputRange = el.createTextRange();
precedingRange = el.createTextRange();
pos = 0;
bookmark = range.getBookmark();
textInputRange.moveToBookmark(bookmark);
if (/[\r\n]/.test(originalValue)) {
// Trickier case where input value contains line breaks
// Test whether the selection range is at the end of the
// text input by moving it on by one character and
// checking if it's still within the text input.
try {
range.move("character", 1);
isAtEnd = (range.parentElement() != el);
} catch (ex) {
log.warn("Error moving range", ex);
isAtEnd = true;
}
range.moveToBookmark(bookmark);
if (isAtEnd) {
pos = originalValue.length;
} else {
// Insert a character in the text input range and use
// that as a marker
textInputRange.text = " ";
precedingRange.setEndPoint("EndToStart", textInputRange);
pos = precedingRange.text.length - 1;
// Delete the inserted character
textInputRange.moveStart("character", -1);
textInputRange.text = "";
}
} else {
// Easier case where input value contains no line breaks
precedingRange.setEndPoint("EndToStart", textInputRange);
pos = precedingRange.text.length;
}
return pos;
}
}
return 0;
}
function getTextAreaSelection(textarea) {
var start = getSelectionBoundary(textarea, true),
end = getSelectionBoundary(textarea, false);
return {
start: start,
end: end,
length: end - start,
text: textarea.value.slice(start, end)
};
}
function detectPaste(textarea, callback) {
textarea.onpaste = function() {
var sel = getTextAreaSelection(textarea);
var initialLength = textarea.value.length;
window.setTimeout(function() {
var val = textarea.value;
var pastedTextLength = val.length - (initialLength - sel.length);
var end = sel.start + pastedTextLength;
callback({
start: sel.start,
end: end,
length: pastedTextLength,
text: val.slice(sel.start, end),
replacedText: sel.text
});
}, 1);
};
}
window.onload = function() {
var textarea = document.getElementById("your_textarea");
detectPaste(textarea, function(pasteInfo) {
var val = textarea.value;
// Delete the pasted text and restore any previously selected text
textarea.value = val.slice(0, pasteInfo.start) +
pasteInfo.replacedText + val.slice(pasteInfo.end);
alert(pasteInfo.text);
});
};
You might now use FilteredPaste.js (http://willemmulder.github.com/FilteredPaste.js/) instead. It will let you control what content gets pasted into a textarea or contenteditable and you will be able to filter/change/extract content at will.
A quick search shows me that there are different methods for different browsers. I'm not sure if jQuery has a solution. Prototype.js does not appear to have one. Maybe YUI can do this for you?
You can also use TinyMCE, since it does have a gazillion of different event triggers. It is a full fledged word processor, but you can use it as plain text if you want. It might be a bit too much weight to add though. For example, upon initiation, it turns your <textarea> into an iFrame with several sub. But it will do what you ask.
--Dave
I'm working on a jQuery plugin that will allow you to do #username style tags, like Facebook does in their status update input box.
My problem is, that even after hours of researching and experimenting, it seems REALLY hard to simply move the caret. I've managed to inject the <a> tag with someone's name, but placing the caret after it seems like rocket science, specially if it's supposed work in all browsers.
And I haven't even looked into replacing the typed #username text with the tag yet, rather than just injecting it as I'm doing right now... lol
There's a ton of questions about working with contenteditable here on Stack Overflow, and I think I've read all of them, but they don't really cover properly what I need. So any more information anyone can provide would be great :)
You could use my Rangy library, which attempts with some success to normalize browser range and selection implementations. If you've managed to insert the <a> as you say and you've got it in a variable called aElement, you can do the following:
var range = rangy.createRange();
range.setStartAfter(aElement);
range.collapse(true);
var sel = rangy.getSelection();
sel.removeAllRanges();
sel.addRange(range);
I got interested in this, so I've written the starting point for a full solution. The following uses my Rangy library with its selection save/restore module to save and restore the selection and normalize cross browser issues. It surrounds all matching text (#whatever in this case) with a link element and positions the selection where it had been previously. This is triggered after there has been no keyboard activity for one second. It should be quite reusable.
function createLink(matchedTextNode) {
var el = document.createElement("a");
el.style.backgroundColor = "yellow";
el.style.padding = "2px";
el.contentEditable = false;
var matchedName = matchedTextNode.data.slice(1); // Remove the leading #
el.href = "http://www.example.com/?name=" + matchedName;
matchedTextNode.data = matchedName;
el.appendChild(matchedTextNode);
return el;
}
function shouldLinkifyContents(el) {
return el.tagName != "A";
}
function surroundInElement(el, regex, surrounderCreateFunc, shouldSurroundFunc) {
var child = el.lastChild;
while (child) {
if (child.nodeType == 1 && shouldSurroundFunc(el)) {
surroundInElement(child, regex, surrounderCreateFunc, shouldSurroundFunc);
} else if (child.nodeType == 3) {
surroundMatchingText(child, regex, surrounderCreateFunc);
}
child = child.previousSibling;
}
}
function surroundMatchingText(textNode, regex, surrounderCreateFunc) {
var parent = textNode.parentNode;
var result, surroundingNode, matchedTextNode, matchLength, matchedText;
while ( textNode && (result = regex.exec(textNode.data)) ) {
matchedTextNode = textNode.splitText(result.index);
matchedText = result[0];
matchLength = matchedText.length;
textNode = (matchedTextNode.length > matchLength) ?
matchedTextNode.splitText(matchLength) : null;
surroundingNode = surrounderCreateFunc(matchedTextNode.cloneNode(true));
parent.insertBefore(surroundingNode, matchedTextNode);
parent.removeChild(matchedTextNode);
}
}
function updateLinks() {
var el = document.getElementById("editable");
var savedSelection = rangy.saveSelection();
surroundInElement(el, /#\w+/, createLink, shouldLinkifyContents);
rangy.restoreSelection(savedSelection);
}
var keyTimer = null, keyDelay = 1000;
function keyUpLinkifyHandler() {
if (keyTimer) {
window.clearTimeout(keyTimer);
}
keyTimer = window.setTimeout(function() {
updateLinks();
keyTimer = null;
}, keyDelay);
}
HTML:
<p contenteditable="true" id="editable" onkeyup="keyUpLinkifyHandler()">
Some editable content for #someone or other
</p>
As you say you can already insert an tag at the caret, I'm going to start from there. The first thing to do is to give your tag an id when you insert it. You should then have something like this:
<div contenteditable='true' id='status'>I went shopping with <a href='#' id='atagid'>Jane</a></div>
Here is a function that should place the cursor just after the tag.
function setCursorAfterA()
{
var atag = document.getElementById("atagid");
var parentdiv = document.getElementById("status");
var range,selection;
if(window.getSelection) //FF,Chrome,Opera,Safari,IE9+
{
parentdiv.appendChild(document.createTextNode(""));//FF wont allow cursor to be placed directly between <a> tag and the end of the div, so a space is added at the end (this can be trimmed later)
range = document.createRange();//create range object (like an invisible selection)
range.setEndAfter(atag);//set end of range selection to just after the <a> tag
range.setStartAfter(atag);//set start of range selection to just after the <a> tag
selection = window.getSelection();//get selection object (list of current selections/ranges)
selection.removeAllRanges();//remove any current selections (FF can have more than one)
parentdiv.focus();//Focuses contenteditable div (necessary for opera)
selection.addRange(range);//add our range object to the selection list (make our range visible)
}
else if(document.selection)//IE 8 and lower
{
range = document.body.createRange();//create a "Text Range" object (like an invisible selection)
range.moveToElementText(atag);//select the contents of the a tag (i.e. "Jane")
range.collapse(false);//collapse selection to end of range (between "e" and "</a>").
while(range.parentElement() == atag)//while ranges cursor is still inside <a> tag
{
range.move("character",1);//move cursor 1 character to the right
}
range.move("character",-1);//move cursor 1 character to the left
range.select()//move the actual cursor to the position of the ranges cursor
}
/*OPTIONAL:
atag.id = ""; //remove id from a tag
*/
}
EDIT:
Tested and fixed script. It definitely works in IE6, chrome 8, firefox 4, and opera 11. Don't have other browsers on hand to test, but it doesn't use any functions that have changed recently so it should work in anything that supports contenteditable.
This button is handy for testing:
<input type='button' onclick='setCursorAfterA()' value='Place Cursor After <a/> tag' >
Nico