I'm finding tons of good, cross-browser answers on how to set the caret position in a contentEditable
element, but none on how to get the caret position in the first place.
What I want to do is know the caret position within a div on keyup
. So, when the user is typing text, I can, at any point, know the caret position within the contentEditable
element.
<div id="contentBox" contentEditable="true"></div>
$('#contentbox').keyup(function() {
// ... ?
});
The following code assumes:
<div>
and no other nodeswhite-space
property set to pre
If you need a more general approach that will work content with nested elements, try this answer:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/4812022/96100
Code:
function getCaretPosition(editableDiv) {
var caretPos = 0,
sel, range;
if (window.getSelection) {
sel = window.getSelection();
if (sel.rangeCount) {
range = sel.getRangeAt(0);
if (range.commonAncestorContainer.parentNode == editableDiv) {
caretPos = range.endOffset;
}
}
} else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
range = document.selection.createRange();
if (range.parentElement() == editableDiv) {
var tempEl = document.createElement("span");
editableDiv.insertBefore(tempEl, editableDiv.firstChild);
var tempRange = range.duplicate();
tempRange.moveToElementText(tempEl);
tempRange.setEndPoint("EndToEnd", range);
caretPos = tempRange.text.length;
}
}
return caretPos;
}
#caretposition {
font-weight: bold;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="contentbox" contenteditable="true">Click me and move cursor with keys or mouse</div>
<div id="caretposition">0</div>
<script>
var update = function() {
$('#caretposition').html(getCaretPosition(this));
};
$('#contentbox').on("mousedown mouseup keydown keyup", update);
</script>