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

I liked lepe's answer except for a few things:

1. Browser-sniffing, jQuery or no isn't optimal
2. DRY
3. Doesn't work in IE8 if obj's parent doesn't support createTextRange
4. Chrome's ability to use setBaseAndExtent should be leveraged (IMO)
5. Will not select text spanning across multiple DOM elements (elements within the "selected" element). In other words if you call selText on a div containing multiple span elements, it will not select the text of each of those elements. That was a deal-breaker for me, YMMV.

Here's what I came up with, with a nod to lepe's answer for inspiration. I'm sure I'll be ridiculed as this is perhaps a bit heavy-handed (and actually could be moreso but I digress). But it works and avoids browser-sniffing and that's the point.

selectText:function(){

    var range,
        selection,
        obj = this[0],
        type = {
            func:'function',
            obj:'object'
        },
        // Convenience
        is = function(type, o){
            return typeof o === type;
        };

    if(is(type.obj, obj.ownerDocument)
        && is(type.obj, obj.ownerDocument.defaultView)
        && is(type.func, obj.ownerDocument.defaultView.getSelection)){

        selection = obj.ownerDocument.defaultView.getSelection();

        if(is(type.func, selection.setBaseAndExtent)){
            // Chrome, Safari - nice and easy
            selection.setBaseAndExtent(obj, 0, obj, $(obj).contents().size());
        }
        else if(is(type.func, obj.ownerDocument.createRange)){

            range = obj.ownerDocument.createRange();

            if(is(type.func, range.selectNodeContents)
                && is(type.func, selection.removeAllRanges)
                && is(type.func, selection.addRange)){
                // Mozilla
                range.selectNodeContents(obj);
                selection.removeAllRanges();
                selection.addRange(range);
            }
        }
    }
    else if(is(type.obj, document.body) && is(type.obj, document.body.createTextRange)) {

        range = document.body.createTextRange();

        if(is(type.obj, range.moveToElementText) && is(type.obj, range.select)){
            // IE most likely
            range.moveToElementText(obj);
            range.select();
        }
    }

    // Chainable
    return this;
}

That's it. Some of what you see is the for readability and/or convenience. Tested on Mac in latest versions of Opera, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and IE. Also tested in IE8. Also I typically only declare variables if/when needed inside code blocks but jslint suggested they all be declared up top. Ok jslint.

Edit I forgot to include how to tie this in to the op's code:

function SelectText(element) {
    $("#" + element).selectText();
}

Cheers