Selecting text in an element (akin to highlighting with your mouse)

Question

I would like to have users click a link, then it selects the HTML text in another element (not an input).

By \"select\" I mean the same way you would select

Answer 1

This thread (dead now) contains really wonderful stuff. But I'm not able to do it right on this page using FF 3.5b99 + FireBug due to "Security Error".

Yipee!! I was able to select whole right hand sidebar with this code hope it helps you:

    var r = document.createRange();
    var w=document.getElementById("sidebar");  
    r.selectNodeContents(w);  
    var sel=window.getSelection(); 
    sel.removeAllRanges(); 
    sel.addRange(r); 

PS:- I was not able to use objects returned by jquery selectors like

   var w=$("div.welovestackoverflow",$("div.sidebar"));
   
   //this throws **security exception**

   r.selectNodeContents(w);