JavaScript: get cursor position in contenteditable div
I am pretty new to JavaScript and hope someone here can help me with the following:
Primarily looking for a solution in IE 8 - if it can cover other browsers / versions even better. I have a page with only one contenteditable div that is created dynamically and contains both text and HTML tags. On the page I want to add a button that inserts certain text at the cursor position into this div.
So far I have the following code which works fine as long as I select a text in the div but if I just position my cursor there without selecting anything it inserts my text outside the div.
How can I get it to add my text always at the cursor position the same way it does now at the selection position ? (I don't even need it to replace a selection as it would only be required at the cursor position. Also, this would only be required for one specific div.)
My Code:
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">
function test()
{
var input = "TEST";
document.selection.createRange().pasteHTML(input);
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="myDiv" contenteditable>This is a test text.</div><br />
<button type="button" onclick="test()">Test</button>
</body>
</html>
Thanks for any help with this, Tim
Answer
Your problem is that the <button> element steals the focus and destroys the selection by the time the click event has fired in IE. You could make the <button> unselectable, which would prevent it being able to receive focus. This is done using the unselectable attribute in IE:
<button type="button" unselectable="on" onclick="test()">Test</button>
Demo: http://jsbin.com/aqAYUwu/5
Another alternative which is less good in my view is to use the mousedown event instead and prevent the default action:
<button type="button" unselectable="on"
onmousedown="test(); return false">Test</button>
You can find a cross-browser function to insert HTML at the current cursor position in a contenteditable element here:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/6691294/96100
One final note: contenteditable isn't a boolean attribute so strictly speaking you should give it a value (i.e. <div contenteditable="true">), although <div contenteditable> does work in all browsers I've tried it in.