jQuery Set Cursor Position in Text Area

Question

How do you set the cursor position in a text field using jQuery? I\'ve got a text field with content, and I want the users cursor to be positioned at a certain offset when

Answer 1

I found a solution that works for me:

$.fn.setCursorPosition = function(position){
    if(this.length == 0) return this;
    return $(this).setSelection(position, position);
}

$.fn.setSelection = function(selectionStart, selectionEnd) {
    if(this.length == 0) return this;
    var input = this[0];

    if (input.createTextRange) {
        var range = input.createTextRange();
        range.collapse(true);
        range.moveEnd('character', selectionEnd);
        range.moveStart('character', selectionStart);
        range.select();
    } else if (input.setSelectionRange) {
        input.focus();
        input.setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd);
    }

    return this;
}

$.fn.focusEnd = function(){
    this.setCursorPosition(this.val().length);
            return this;
}

Now you can move the focus to the end of any element by calling:

$(element).focusEnd();

Or you specify the position.

$(element).setCursorPosition(3); // This will focus on the third character.