Selecting text in an element (akin to highlighting with your mouse)
Here's a version with no browser sniffing and no reliance on jQuery:
function selectElementText(el, win) {
win = win || window;
var doc = win.document, sel, range;
if (win.getSelection && doc.createRange) {
sel = win.getSelection();
range = doc.createRange();
range.selectNodeContents(el);
sel.removeAllRanges();
sel.addRange(range);
} else if (doc.body.createTextRange) {
range = doc.body.createTextRange();
range.moveToElementText(el);
range.select();
}
}
selectElementText(document.getElementById("someElement"));
selectElementText(elementInIframe, iframe.contentWindow);
Plain Javascript
function selectText(nodeId) {
const node = document.getElementById(nodeId);
if (document.body.createTextRange) {
const range = document.body.createTextRange();
range.moveToElementText(node);
range.select();
} else if (window.getSelection) {
const selection = window.getSelection();
const range = document.createRange();
range.selectNodeContents(node);
selection.removeAllRanges();
selection.addRange(range);
} else {
console.warn("Could not select text in node: Unsupported browser.");
}
}
const clickable = document.querySelector('.click-me');
clickable.addEventListener('click', () => selectText('target'));
<div id="target"><p>Some text goes here!</p><p>Moar text!</p></div>
<p class="click-me">Click me!</p>
Here is a working demo. For those of you looking for a jQuery plugin, I made one of those too.
jQuery (original answer)
I have found a solution for this in this thread. I was able to modify the info given and mix it with a bit of jQuery to create a totally awesome function to select the text in any element, regardless of browser:
function SelectText(element) {
var text = document.getElementById(element);
if ($.browser.msie) {
var range = document.body.createTextRange();
range.moveToElementText(text);
range.select();
} else if ($.browser.mozilla || $.browser.opera) {
var selection = window.getSelection();
var range = document.createRange();
range.selectNodeContents(text);
selection.removeAllRanges();
selection.addRange(range);
} else if ($.browser.safari) {
var selection = window.getSelection();
selection.setBaseAndExtent(text, 0, text, 1);
}
}