Question

Is it possible to use or adapt jQuery’s .select() to set a selection range on the entire contents of a div?

I have a div which has a series of labels, inputs, select objects and a couple of other UI elements. I have found code on a separate StackOverflow post with some code hosted on jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/KcX6A/570/

Can this be adapted to select the value of inputs also? Or how would you suggest I go about this?

Thanks,
Conor

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Edit: More info

I know how to get the value of inputs using jQuery, that is easy, I also know how to select he values of independent elements using .select().

In my div I have a series of different element types including inputs, labels, selects, etc. I need an overall selection of all elements. The jsFiddle link I added earlier shows how to set the range of a div and select the text of elements like p tags etc. What I need is to set the range of the div’s contents and when I hit ctrl+c or cmd+c it copies the values of the inputs as well as the labels.

So to summarise, using .val and .select won’t work for this I don’t think. I need to combine the above in some way but not sure exactly how this will be accomplished. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Check this fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/JAq2e/

Basically the trick is to introduce a hidden text node whose content will be included in the selection when copied.

jQuery.fn.selectText = function(){
    this.find('input').each(function() {
        if($(this).prev().length == 0 || !$(this).prev().hasClass('p_copy')) { 
            $('<p class="p_copy" style="position: absolute; z-index: -1;"></p>').insertBefore($(this));
        }
        $(this).prev().html($(this).val());
    });
    var doc = document;
    var element = this[0];
    console.log(this, element);
    if (doc.body.createTextRange) {
        var range = document.body.createTextRange();
        range.moveToElementText(element);
        range.select();
    } else if (window.getSelection) {
        var selection = window.getSelection();        
        var range = document.createRange();
        range.selectNodeContents(element);
        selection.removeAllRanges();
        selection.addRange(range);
    }
};

And use it like:

$('#selectme').selectText();

---

You can couple the above plugin with an event handler if you want to create selection links :

Code :

$('.select-text').on('click', function(e) {
    var selector = $(this).data('selector');
    $(selector).selectText();
    e.preventDefault();
});

Usage :

<a href="#" class="select-text" data-selector="#some-container">Select all</a>
<div id="some-container">some text</div>

Demo : see js fiddle