Get selected text position and place an element next to it

Question

tl;dr

The idea is to allow a user to mark any text and see menu pop-up just next to the selection, with possible actions to apply to the selected text.

---

<

Answer 1

You should probably insert an absolutely position element at the end of the 'range.' This works differently in different browsers, so your best bet might be to sniff.

And since you asked: this is how the new york times does it in their 'altClickToSearch.js' file:

function insertButton() {

selectionButton = new Element(
        'span', {
          'className':'nytd_selection_button',
          'id':'nytd_selection_button',
          'title':'Lookup Word',
          'style': 'margin:-20px 0 0 -20px; position:absolute; background:url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/word_reference/ref_bubble.png);width:25px;height:29px;cursor:pointer;_background-image: none;filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/word_reference/ref_bubble.png", sizingMethod="image");'
        }
    )

if (Prototype.Browser.IE) {
  var tmp = new Element('div');
  tmp.appendChild(selectionButton);
  newRange = selection.duplicate();
  newRange.setEndPoint( "StartToEnd", selection);
  newRange.pasteHTML(tmp.innerHTML);
  selectionButton = $('nytd_selection_button');
}
else {
  var range = selection.getRangeAt(0);
  newRange = document.createRange();
  newRange.setStart(selection.focusNode, range.endOffset);
  newRange.insertNode(selectionButton);
}
}