October 22, 2001 - Selecting Text in Netscape 6 | WebReference

October 22, 2001 - Selecting Text in Netscape 6

Yehuda Shiran October 22, 2001
Selecting Text in Netscape 6
Tips: October 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

Netscpae 6 features the getSelection() method of the document object. This method returns a string containing the text of the current selection. Its general syntax is:

document.getSelection()
The following example demonstrates the getSelection() method:

<FORM NAME="myForm">
<TEXTAREA NAME="myArea" COLS="40" ROWS="4"></TEXTAREA>
</FORM>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function display() {
  if (!document.getSelection)
    return;
  var str = document.getSelection();
  document.myForm.myArea.value = str;
}
if (window.Event)
  document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEUP);
document.onmouseup = display;
// -->
</SCRIPT>
The script displays the current selection in a box. At first, it instructs the browser to capture all mouseup events. As explained in Column 9, Column 10, and Column 11, this is only required for Navigator 4.0x, so a simple object detection routine makes sure the browser is Netscape 6 before executing the statement.

The event processing function first assigns the selection's text to a variable named str. It then assigns that variable to the value property of the form element, so the selection is displayed in the box. Now go ahead and drag the mouse over some text. If you're using Netscape 6 , the selection will immediately display in the box.