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javascriptcontenteditable

Insert text at cursor in a content editable div


I have a contenteditable div where I need to insert text at the caret position,

This can be easily done in IE by document.selection.createRange().text = "banana"

Is there a similar way of implementing this in Firefox/Chrome?

(I know a solution exists here , but it can't be used in contenteditable div, and looks clumsy)

Thank you!


Solution

  • The following function will insert text at the caret position and delete the existing selection. It works in all the mainstream desktop browsers:

    function insertTextAtCaret(text) {
        var sel, range;
        if (window.getSelection) {
            sel = window.getSelection();
            if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
                range = sel.getRangeAt(0);
                range.deleteContents();
                range.insertNode( document.createTextNode(text) );
            }
        } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
            document.selection.createRange().text = text;
        }
    }
    

    UPDATE

    Based on comment, here's some code for saving and restoring the selection. Before displaying your context menu, you should store the return value of saveSelection in a variable and then pass that variable into restoreSelection to restore the selection after hiding the context menu and before inserting text.

    function saveSelection() {
        if (window.getSelection) {
            sel = window.getSelection();
            if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
                return sel.getRangeAt(0);
            }
        } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
            return document.selection.createRange();
        }
        return null;
    }
    
    function restoreSelection(range) {
        if (range) {
            if (window.getSelection) {
                sel = window.getSelection();
                sel.removeAllRanges();
                sel.addRange(range);
            } else if (document.selection && range.select) {
                range.select();
            }
        }
    }