Question

I’m using document.execCommand("unlink", false, false); to remove hyperlinks and anchors in my own html editor. It works fine except in one case: it doesn’t remove anchors in Firefox. Is this not supported in Firefox or is there another way to solve this?

Here’s my example:

<div contenteditable="true">This is an <a name="anker">anchor</a>. And this is a <a href="#">normal hyperlink</a>. Please try to select them and then press the "Unlink" button.</div>

<input type="button" id="btn" value="Unlink">

$(document).ready(function() {    
    $('#btn').click(function() {
        document.execCommand("unlink", false, false);
    });
});

Check it out on Fiddle

Answer 1

To answer your question about what alternatives there are, you could force the issue and set any a element’s href attribute before calling unlink:

$(document).ready(function() {    
    var $editable = $('[contenteditable]');

    $('#btn').click(function() {
        $editable.find('a:not([href])').attr('href', '#');
        document.execCommand("unlink", false, false);
    });
});

http://jsfiddle.net/Bz7pR/7/

There are, of course, probably multiple ways to “solve” the problem. I figure $.unwrap() would probably work as well. I’m not that versed on document.execCommand and rich text editors, but I imagine you need to be careful, precise, and test test test.

Note, that is just a demonstration; you’ve really got to think about that and consider exactly how you’re going to handle that problem. For instance, you could detect and only run that if Firefox is the browser, which would limit any unexpected damage or outcomes you might have.

EDIT

And here is a more complete version that only affects the selected text range:

$(document).ready(function() {    
    $('#btn').click(function unlink() {
        var holder,
            frag,
            range,
            child;

        if (window.getSelection && window.getSelection().getRangeAt) {
            holder = document.createElement('div');
            frag = document.createDocumentFragment();
            range = window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);

            $(holder)
                .append(range.cloneContents())
                .find('a:not([href])')
                .attr('href', '#');

            while ((child = holder.firstChild)) {
                frag.appendChild(child);
            }

            range.deleteContents();
            range.insertNode(frag);
        }

        document.execCommand("unlink", false, false);
    });    
});

http://jsfiddle.net/Bz7pR/12/

I’m no genius when it comes to text ranges and selections, so I modified the code found in this answer:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/6252893/451969

To come up with what is above. If someone sees something that’s either wrong or incoherent, leave me a comment below.