Internet Explorer equivalent range.startOffset

Question

How can I get functionality equivalent to that of range.startOffset in Internet Explorer 8 and below?

I.e., I'd like a function I can call on a range that will tell me how many characters into its container the range starts.

Answer 1

If you want a DOM Range implementation in IE, you could use my Rangy library: http://code.google.com/p/rangy/.

var range = rangy.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);
alert(range.startOffset);