Calculating start and end selection indices in HTML through Javascript.

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Hi All,

How can I get the start and end selection indices in browsers other than IE in contentEditable 'div'. For Ex., IE has the following method.

C#

var oSelection;
var oTxtRange;
var units = -100000;
var iStartIndex = -1, iEndIndex = -1;
 
if(document.selection)      // IE..
{
  oSelection = document.selection;
  oTxtRange = oSelection.createRange();

  if(oTxtRange)
  {
    iStartIndex = oTxtRange.moveStart('character',units);
    iEndIndex = oTxtRange.moveEnd('character',units);
    iStartIndex *= -1;
    iEndIndex *= -1;
  }
}

I understand that above method is not a W3C standard. I have gone through W3C documentation for Selection and Range object, but still couldn't help finding solution for Chrome and FireFox.

Thanks in Advance :-)

Posted 13-Sep-10 22:59pm

ammar_bharmal

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ammar_bharmal · Answer 1 · 2010-09-14T04:08:00

Hi All,

Finally I found the following solution for Non-IE browsers.

C#

function getBodyTextOffset(node, offset) {
    var sel = window.getSelection();
    var range = document.createRange();
    range.selectNodeContents(document.body);
    range.setEnd(node, offset);
    sel.removeAllRanges();
    sel.addRange(range);
    return sel.toString().length;
}
 
function getSelectionOffsets() {
    var sel, range;
    var start = 0, end = 0;
    if (window.getSelection) {
        sel = window.getSelection();
        if (sel.rangeCount) {
            range = sel.getRangeAt(sel.rangeCount - 1);
            start = getBodyTextOffset(range.startContainer, range.startOffset);
            end = getBodyTextOffset(range.endContainer, range.endOffset);
            sel.removeAllRanges();
            sel.addRange(range);
            alert(start + ", " + end);
        }
        else if (document.selection) {
            // IE stuff here
        }
    }
 
    return {
        start: start,
        end: end
    };
}