asked on

Contenteditable spans and line breaks

Hi, I have the following HTML, the idea being that users can edit between the square brackets :

<HTML><BODY>some content [editable text here] some more content</BODY></HTML>

Now, if the user presses carriage return whilst editing within the span, I would like the right hand bracket (and any other text to the right of the cursor) to drop down on to the next line, so the user can continue editing. However, this is not what happens. What actually happens is that any text to the left of the cursor within the span stays on the same line, with the remained of the span content, along with the text outside the span dropping down on to the next line.

So, say I press carriage return when the cursor is between "editable" and "text", what it looks like is this (assuming my spacing works!!) :

editable
some content [text here] some more content

What I want it to look like is

some content [editable
text here] some more content

Can you please give me some assistance in achieving the desired result.

Many thanks
Martyn

pulupul

I don't know if I understood correctly. Would adding a tag where you want the line break to be solve your problem?

martynjpearson

ASKER

Hi

No, I'm afraid that does the same as the user pressing carriage return, in that the result is as above.

Thanks
Martyn

seanpowell

I don't quite follow your explanation ...
Could you give it another try?

Colosseo

Hi

I can get it to look like this (assuming spacing works) when I press return between "editable" and "text"...

some content [ editable
text here ] some more content

dont know if that would be any use to you?

Scott

martynjpearson

ASKER

It's probably easier to paste the html above into notepad to see what I mean, but hopefully this explains things clearer....

When showing a page containing the HTML above in the browser, placing the cursor in the contenteditable area (say between the words editable and text) and pressing return causes the whole line to descend, leaving just the word editable on the original line. The bottom of the span appears to be aligned with the bottom of the surrounding text, and pressing carriage return maintains this alignment. i,e, you get something like this

editable
some content [text here] some more content

However, what I want to happen when pressing carriage return is for it to look how a word processor would look, i.e. the remainder of the span, and the text following the span get moved on to the next line, like so

some content [ editable
text here ] some more content

Hopefully that makes things clearer!

Cheers,
Martyn

martynjpearson

ASKER

Scott (Collosseo) - my aim is to get the span to flow round fully, but certainly getting it to display how you show it would be a big step forward, so your solution would certainly be of use!

Cheers

Martyn

SOLUTION

Colosseo

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seanpowell

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martynjpearson

ASKER

Sean, Scott

Thanks for your replies. They both do the trick in making the text after the span appear on the right line, but (just to tax you further!) do you know if it is possible to make the text flow to the start of the line, i.e.

some content [ editable
text here] some more content

Rather than

some content [ editable
text here ] some more content

Thanks for your help
Martyn

seanpowell

Not going to happen I'm afraid...

seanpowell

...because, text generates boxes. So what you're asking for is this:

------------- ------------------------
| | | |
| | | |
-------------- ------------------------
-------------------- ------------------------
| | | |
| | | |
-------------------- ------------------------

Colosseo

I have to agree with sean i just dont think it is possible because the other content is outwith the span so what is happening is this...

some content | span1 |
| span1 | some other content

whereas what you want is this

some content | span1 |
| span1 | some other content

Maybe someone can think of something else though

Scott

seanpowell

... so to do what you need, you would have to nest the initial content "inside" the editable region and float it, which may produce some strange results:

 some content [ editable text here
] some more content

martynjpearson

ASKER

I think I'll make do with the text not wrapping back to the beginning of the line - at least it works properly in the span!!

Many thanks for your help on this

Martyn

seanpowell

Okay, and thanks for the A :-)

Colosseo

Yeah thanks Martyn... did you have any luck with seans idea around floating spans?

martynjpearson

ASKER

The problem with the floating spans was that I could move text that was supposed to be read only. However, it's given me some more inspiration and some more things to try!!!

All the best
Martyn

seanpowell

>> was that I could move text that was supposed to be read only

Yes - that's the problem. You "could" set the internal span to false - but the box itself would still be selectable, though uneditable. I have no idea how compliant nesting contenteditable regions is...

 some content [ editable text here
] some more content