How to bind a handler to a selection change on window?

Question

Basically I need to know when the window.getSelection() has changed and bind a handler to this event. Ideas?

OBS: Please note that I\'m not looking to b

Answer 1

I'd argue that the selectionchange event is too greedy, and you want to watch the mouse events. The handler is the easy part. Returning the selected nodes is the important part! Adapting Tim Down's answer here this is what I came up with:

    $(document).on('mouseup', function(e) { 
    
            //cool! jQuery object containing all nodes (elements) that were just selected
            var $selNodes = $().getSelectedNodes();
            if ($selNodes.length)
                     alert('user selected something');
            
            //so now I can do work on just the elements I am interested in that were selected
            if($selNodes.filter('.justTheClassIwant').length)
                alert('user selected the elements I want to watch');
        });
    
    jQuery.fn.extend({
    getSelectedNodes: function() {
        if (window.getSelection) {
            var sel = window.getSelection();
            if (!sel.isCollapsed) {
                var range = sel.getRangeAt(0);
                var node = range.startContainer;
                var endNode = range.endContainer;

                // Special case for a range that is contained within a single node
                if (node == endNode) {
                    return [node];
                }

                // Iterate nodes until we hit the end container
                var rangeNodes = [];
                while (node && node != endNode) {
                    if (node.hasChildNodes()) {
                        node = node.firstChild;
                    } 
                    else {
                        while (node && !node.nextSibling) {
                            node = node.parentNode;
                        }
                        node = node.nextSibling;
                    }
    
                    rangeNodes.push(node);
                }

                // Add partially selected nodes at the start of the range
                node = range.startContainer;
                while (node && node != range.commonAncestorContainer) {
                    rangeNodes.unshift(node);
                    node = node.parentNode;
                }

                return jQuery(rangeNodes);
            }
        }
        return jQuery([]);
    }
});