Insert ellipsis (…) into HTML tag if content too wide

Question

I have a webpage with an elastic layout that changes its width if the browser window is resized.

In this layout there are headlines (h2) that will have

Answer 1

This is similar to Alex's but does it in log time instead of linear, and takes a maxHeight parameter.

jQuery.fn.ellipsis = function(text, maxHeight) {
  var element = $(this);
  var characters = text.length;
  var step = text.length / 2;
  var newText = text;
  while (step > 0) {
    element.html(newText);
    if (element.outerHeight() <= maxHeight) {
      if (text.length == newText.length) {
        step = 0;
      } else {
        characters += step;
        newText = text.substring(0, characters);
      }
    } else {
      characters -= step;
      newText = newText.substring(0, characters);
    }
    step = parseInt(step / 2);
  }
  if (text.length > newText.length) {
    element.html(newText + "...");
    while (element.outerHeight() > maxHeight && newText.length >= 1) {
      newText = newText.substring(0, newText.length - 1);
      element.html(newText + "...");
    }
  }
};