Question

have this html:

<div id="editable" contentEditable="true"  >
    <span contentEditable="false" >Text to delete</span>
</div>

need that the span (and all text inside) is removed with a single backspace, is it possible?

Answer 1

This turned out to be more complicated than I thought. Or I’ve made it more complicated than it needs to be. Anyway, this should work in all the big browsers:

function getLastTextNodeIn(node) {
    while (node) {
        if (node.nodeType == 3) {
            return node;
        } else {
            node = node.lastChild;
        }
    }
}

function isRangeAfterNode(range, node) {
    var nodeRange, lastTextNode;
    if (range.compareBoundaryPoints) {
        nodeRange = document.createRange();
        lastTextNode = getLastTextNodeIn(node);
        nodeRange.selectNodeContents(lastTextNode);
        nodeRange.collapse(false);
        return range.compareBoundaryPoints(range.START_TO_END, nodeRange) > -1;
    } else if (range.compareEndPoints) {
        if (node.nodeType == 1) {
            nodeRange = document.body.createTextRange();
            nodeRange.moveToElementText(node);
            nodeRange.collapse(false);
            return range.compareEndPoints("StartToEnd", nodeRange) > -1;
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }
}

document.getElementById("editable").onkeydown = function(evt) {
    var sel, range, node, nodeToDelete, nextNode, nodeRange;
    evt = evt || window.event;
    if (evt.keyCode == 8) {
        // Get the DOM node containing the start of the selection
        if (window.getSelection && window.getSelection().getRangeAt) {
            range = window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);
        } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
            range = document.selection.createRange();
        }

        if (range) {
            node = this.lastChild;
            while (node) {
                if ( isRangeAfterNode(range, node) ) {
                    nodeToDelete = node;
                    break;
                } else {
                    node = node.previousSibling;
                }
            }

            if (nodeToDelete) {
                this.removeChild(nodeToDelete);
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
};