Question

Get start and end points of user selection in relation to parent div

Asked by: dearsina

Imagine the following scenario:

A user highlights a part of a paragraph and presses a button that runs a piece of javascript. The javascript returns the start and end points of the selected text, in relation to the div it is in. So for example, if I selected the W from the following line, the script would return the value start=7 and end=8:

<div>Hello World</div>

The catch is, if the div contains additional code within it, the start and end values should remain the same, so the values should still be start=7 and end=8, even when the user highlights the W of the following line:

<div>Hell<a href=#>o</a> World</div>

In IE, I can acheive this by using the following code snippet:

var element = document.getElementById( 'thediv' );
if( document.selection ){
      var range = document.selection.createRange();
      var stored_range = range.duplicate();
      stored_range.moveToElementText( element );
      stored_range.setEndPoint( 'EndToEnd', range );
      element.selectionStart = stored_range.text.length - range.text.length;
      element.selectionEnd = element.selectionStart + range.text.length;
}

element.selectionStart/End now contain the start and end values.

How would I achieve the same using FireFox?

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Asked On
2007-01-16 at 05:55:51ID22124221
Tags

javascript

,

selection

,

get

,

start

,

end

Topic

JavaScript

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: nbkbar7Posted on 2007-01-16 at 09:57:10ID: 18325978

get your selection using document.getSelection,
loop thru the div looking for text elements to assemble the displayed string,
get the indexOf the selection within the DIV's string

give this a try...

lem'me know if you have questions or it dosen't work right...


Dave



<html>
<head>
<script>
function getSel(divName)
{
      var txt = '';
      var foundIn = '';
      var num = 0;
      var obj = document.getElementById(divName);
      var divStr = '';
      var begin = -1;
      var end = -1;

      if (document.getSelection) { // tells us we're in FF
            
            txt = document.getSelection();
            divStr = getDIVString(obj);

            begin = divStr.indexOf(txt);
            if (begin > -1) {
                  begin = begin + 1;
                  end = begin + txt.length;
            } else {
                  // not found
            }
      }
      alert ("selection -> " + txt + "\ndivStr -> " + divStr + "\nbeg [" + begin + "]\nend [" + end + "]");
}

function getDIVString (obj) {
      
      var divStr = '';
      for (ndx = 0; ndx < obj.childNodes.length; ndx++) {
            if (obj.childNodes[ndx].nodeType == 1) { // 1 = element
                  divStr = divStr + getDIVString (obj.childNodes[ndx]);
            } else {
                  if (obj.childNodes[ndx].nodeType == 3) { // 3 = text
                        divStr = divStr + obj.childNodes[ndx].nodeValue;                  
                  }
            }
      }
      return divStr;
}
</script>
</head>
<body>

<div id="thediv">This <a href="#NAME">is</a> some text</div>

 

by: nbkbar7Posted on 2007-01-16 at 10:00:15ID: 18326008

By the way...

This could be pretty slow if there's a lot of data between the DIVs...


Dave

 

by: dearsinaPosted on 2007-01-16 at 17:02:10ID: 18329110

Thank you for your suggestion. I tried it, and you were right, it is very slow on large DIVs, and unfortunately, my DIVs are approx 50.000 characters each. Also, the script looks for the first instance of the selection, so if the selection contents is found several places in the DIV, we're in trouble.

I've spent the entire day looking for a solution, the only pure javascript solution I can think of would be something like this (in quasi code)

Find selection start point within the current node.
Add the length of the current node to its parent node.
Repeat till you're at root (main div) level.

If someone knows the key lines and can share them I would be more appreciative. If not, I will have to settle for a hybrid version of the above, that includes PHP (the PHP will do exactly the same as the above, but faster). The benefit of using PHP is (in addition to the increased speed) that if there are several instances of the selected text, let the user decide which one they've chosen. I would be very happy if I could avoid this long-winded approach.

There must be some way for Firefox to do what IE can do in like 6 lines.

 

by: dahweedsPosted on 2008-06-17 at 18:32:51ID: 21809167

I don't know if it matters, but I made a solution to this topic.

I had not found the solution on the net, but this question is  the
thing that came up often in searching.
This solution worked in FF 2, on CentOS Linux.


if (window.getSelection()) {
   //working with a mozilla based browser
	var sl,startChar,endChar,range,stored_range
	
	//get the selected text
	sl = window.getSelection();
	
	//make a range from the selection,
	range = sl.getRangeAt(0);
	
	//get the text from the selected range
	//(.toString strips tags)
	endChar = range.toString().length;
	
	//copy the range to manipulate 
	//we will turn it into the range
	//before the selection
	stored_range = range.cloneRange(); 
	
	//collapse the copy to the starting point,
	stored_range.collapse(true);
	
	//set the start point of stored_range 
	//to div entry startPoint
	stored_range.setStart(document.getElementById('entry'),0);
 
	/*(I new what my div as called
	did not look into dynamicly knowing
	what div the selection is in
	but there is a parent function that
	might give that)
	
	Then expand the copy range to the 
	beginning of the div it is in.
	This will make it have all the
	code up to the selection.
	The start of the selection will be
	the end of stored_range,
	after we strip the tags.
	*/
	startChar =	stored_range.toString().length + 1;
	
	/*
	add the length of the stripped
	selection to know the end
	point without any tags. */
	endChar = (endChar + stored_range.toString().length);
	
	//see were the selection was located
	alert('Selection start:end points not including tags:\\n'+startChar+':'+endChar);
	
 
} 

                                              
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