Insert link in contenteditable element

Question

I'm working on a simple blog system and I'm using contenteditable so that users can format the text.

Up to now everything works like a charm.

Next thing i want is that users can add a hyperlink in the text.

The user have to select (part of) the text and click on the link button. After that a popup opens where users should enter the link address.

When the user clicks on the accept button I want to add the link to the text they selected in the contenteditable.

How can I implement this functionality, since I have no clue how to do this?

My site: http://82.170.147.49/blog/3/alpha-release

jsFiddle of my site: http://jsfiddle.net/qhN9j/

Answer 1

document.execCommand() does this for you in all major browsers:

document.execCommand("CreateLink", false, "http://stackoverflow.com/");

To preserve the selection while your link dialog is displayed, you can use the following functions:

function saveSelection() {
    if (window.getSelection) {
        sel = window.getSelection();
        if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
            var ranges = [];
            for (var i = 0, len = sel.rangeCount; i < len; ++i) {
                ranges.push(sel.getRangeAt(i));
            }
            return ranges;
        }
    } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
        return document.selection.createRange();
    }
    return null;
}

function restoreSelection(savedSel) {
    if (savedSel) {
        if (window.getSelection) {
            sel = window.getSelection();
            sel.removeAllRanges();
            for (var i = 0, len = savedSel.length; i < len; ++i) {
                sel.addRange(savedSel[i]);
            }
        } else if (document.selection && savedSel.select) {
            savedSel.select();
        }
    }
}

jsFiddle example: http://jsfiddle.net/JRKwH/1/

UPDATE

To get hold of the link(s) created (if any were created at all) is tricky. You could use my own Rangy library:

var sel = rangy.getSelection();
if (sel.rangeCount) {
    var links = sel.getRangeAt(0).getNodes([1], function(el) {
        return el.nodeName.toLowerCase() == "a";
    });
    alert(links.length);
}

... or something like the following:

function getLinksInSelection() {
    var selectedLinks = [];
    var range, containerEl, links, linkRange;
    if (window.getSelection) {
        sel = window.getSelection();
        if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
            linkRange = document.createRange();
            for (var r = 0; r < sel.rangeCount; ++r) {
                range = sel.getRangeAt(r);
                containerEl = range.commonAncestorContainer;
                if (containerEl.nodeType != 1) {
                    containerEl = containerEl.parentNode;
                }
                if (containerEl.nodeName.toLowerCase() == "a") {
                    selectedLinks.push(containerEl);
                } else {
                    links = containerEl.getElementsByTagName("a");
                    for (var i = 0; i < links.length; ++i) {
                        linkRange.selectNodeContents(links[i]);
                        if (linkRange.compareBoundaryPoints(range.END_TO_START, range) < 1 && linkRange.compareBoundaryPoints(range.START_TO_END, range) > -1) {
                            selectedLinks.push(links[i]);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            linkRange.detach();
        }
    } else if (document.selection && document.selection.type != "Control") {
        range = document.selection.createRange();
        containerEl = range.parentElement();
        if (containerEl.nodeName.toLowerCase() == "a") {
            selectedLinks.push(containerEl);
        } else {
            links = containerEl.getElementsByTagName("a");
            linkRange = document.body.createTextRange();
            for (var i = 0; i < links.length; ++i) {
                linkRange.moveToElementText(links[i]);
                if (linkRange.compareEndPoints("StartToEnd", range) > -1 && linkRange.compareEndPoints("EndToStart", range) < 1) {
                    selectedLinks.push(links[i]);
                } 
            }
        }
    }
    return selectedLinks;
}

jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/JRKwH/3/