I have an extension where I am storing/retrieving a section of the DOM structure (always a selection of text on the screen) the user has selected. When I am storing a selection, I enclose the section in a SPAN tag, and highlight the text in yellow. This causes the DOM structure around the selected text to split up into various text nodes. This causes a problem for me as when I try to restore this selection (without refreshing the page) it causes problems as the DOM structure has been modified.
My question is how do I prevent the DOM structure from splitting up after inserting the SPAN? If this cannot be achieved, how would I reassemble the DOM structure after removing the SPAN tag to its original state?
//Insert the span
var sel = restoreSelection(mootsOnPage[i].startXPath);
var range = sel.getRangeAt(0).cloneRange();
var newNode = document.createElement('span');
newNode.className = 'highlightYellow';
range.surroundContents(newNode);
//Original DOM structure
<p>Hello there, how are you today</p>
//What the DOM looks like after insertion of SPAN
<p>
"Hello there, "
<span class="highlightYellow">how</span
" are you today"
</p>
You can use this to unwrap your content.
$(".highlightYellow").contents().unwrap();