Selection
Summary
Represents the text selection in the greater page, possibly spanning multiple elements, when the user drags over static text and other parts of the page.
Overview
Selection is the class of the object returned by window.getSelection() and other methods. For information about text selection in an individual text editing element, see Input, TextArea and document.activeElement which typically return the parent object returned from window.getSelection().
Properties
- anchorNode
- Returns the element or node that contains the start of the selection.
- anchorOffset
- Returns the number of characters that the selection’s anchor is offset within the anchorNode.
- focusNode
- Retrieves the element or node that contains the end of a selection.
- focusOffset
- Returns the number of characters that the selection’s focus is offset within the focusNode.
- isCollapsed
- Retrieves whether a selection is collapsed or empty.
- rangeCount
- Returns the number of ranges in a selection
Methods
- addRange
Adds a Range to the current selection.
- clear
The clear() method is not in HTMLSelection Object.
Use the removeAllRanges Method instead.
- collapse
Replaces the current selection with an empty selection (or a caret) at the given offset.
- collapseToEnd
Collapses or sets the insertion point or caret at the end of a selection object.
If the content the selection is in is focused and editable, the caret will blink there.
- deleteFromDocument
- Deletes the selected nodes from a document.
- getRangeAt
- Returns a specified Range from a selection. The Range is specified by an index and cannot be greater than the number that is returned by rangeCount.
- removeAllRanges
- Removes all ranges from a selection.
- removeRange
- Removes a range from a selection.
- selectAllChildren
- Adds all the children of the specified node to the selection. Previous selection is lost.
Events
No events.
Examples
A selection object represents the ranges that the user has selected. Typically, it holds only one range, accessed as follows:
var selObj = window.getSelection();
if(selObj.rangeCount){ range = selObj.getRangeAt(0);}
Related specifications
- W3C HTML5
- Proposed Recommendation
Attributions
Mozilla Developer Network
: [Selection Object Article]Microsoft Developer Network: [HTMLSelection Object Article]