I have this simple HTML as an example:
text text text
text text text
text text
I refactored @Liam's answer. I put it in a class with static methods, I made its functions receive an element instead of an #id, and some other small tweaks.
This code is particularly good for fixing the cursor in a rich text box that you might be making with edit: His answer and this answer have a bug involving hitting enter. Since enter doesn't count as a character, the cursor position gets messed up after hitting enter. If I am able to fix the code, I will update my answer. edit2: Save yourself a lot of headaches and make sure your display: inline-block
. This fixes some bugs related to Chrome putting
when you press enter.
How To Use
let richText = document.getElementById('rich-text');
let offset = Cursor.getCurrentCursorPosition(richText);
// do stuff to the innerHTML, such as adding/removing tags
Cursor.setCurrentCursorPosition(offset, richText);
richText.focus();
Code
// Credit to Liam (Stack Overflow)
// https://stackoverflow.com/a/41034697/3480193
class Cursor {
static getCurrentCursorPosition(parentElement) {
var selection = window.getSelection(),
charCount = -1,
node;
if (selection.focusNode) {
if (Cursor._isChildOf(selection.focusNode, parentElement)) {
node = selection.focusNode;
charCount = selection.focusOffset;
while (node) {
if (node === parentElement) {
break;
}
if (node.previousSibling) {
node = node.previousSibling;
charCount += node.textContent.length;
} else {
node = node.parentNode;
if (node === null) {
break;
}
}
}
}
}
return charCount;
}
static setCurrentCursorPosition(chars, element) {
if (chars >= 0) {
var selection = window.getSelection();
let range = Cursor._createRange(element, { count: chars });
if (range) {
range.collapse(false);
selection.removeAllRanges();
selection.addRange(range);
}
}
}
static _createRange(node, chars, range) {
if (!range) {
range = document.createRange()
range.selectNode(node);
range.setStart(node, 0);
}
if (chars.count === 0) {
range.setEnd(node, chars.count);
} else if (node && chars.count >0) {
if (node.nodeType === Node.TEXT_NODE) {
if (node.textContent.length < chars.count) {
chars.count -= node.textContent.length;
} else {
range.setEnd(node, chars.count);
chars.count = 0;
}
} else {
for (var lp = 0; lp < node.childNodes.length; lp++) {
range = Cursor._createRange(node.childNodes[lp], chars, range);
if (chars.count === 0) {
break;
}
}
}
}
return range;
}
static _isChildOf(node, parentElement) {
while (node !== null) {
if (node === parentElement) {
return true;
}
node = node.parentNode;
}
return false;
}
}