jquery input select all on focus

I think that what happens is this:

focus()
   UI tasks related to pre-focus
   callbacks
       select()
   UI tasks related to focus (which unselect again)

A workaround may be calling the select() asynchronously, so that it runs completely after focus():

$("input[type=text]").focus(function() { 
    var save_this = $(this);
    window.setTimeout (function(){ 
       save_this.select(); 
    },100);
});

I think this is better solution. Unlike simply selecting in onclick event, it doesn't prevent selecting/editing text with mouse. It works with major rendering engines including IE8.

$('input').on('focus', function (e) {
    $(this)
        .one('mouseup', function () {
            $(this).select();
            return false;
        })
        .select();
});

http://jsfiddle.net/25Mab/9/

Try using click instead of focus. It seems to work for both mouse and key events (at least on Chrome/Mac):

jQuery < version 1.7:

$("input[type='text']").click(function () {
   $(this).select();
});

jQuery version 1.7+:

$("input[type='text']").on("click", function () {
   $(this).select();
});

Here is a demo