Issue with selecting text using keys jquery

Question

I need to highlight the selected text in a div using keys and mouse. Approach for select using mouse is as follows:

html code:

 <div id="passage_response" contenteditable="true">
       <span class="word" num="0"> In </span>
       <span class="word" num="1"> this </span>
       <span class="word" num="2"> bug, </span>
       <span class="word" num="3"> issue </span>
       <span class="word" num="4"> no </span>
       <span class="word" num="5"> 1 </span>
       <span class="word" num="6"> explains </span>
    </div>

jquery:

    $('#passage_response .word').bind('dblclick', function() {
        toggleHighlight(this);
    });
    function toggleHighlight(target) {
        //highlighting functionality here
    }

This is working fine for mouse double click. But for using keys this not working as expected. Because I need to make this functionality accessible to visually impaired people. I tried with keypress and keydown to select the text using keys. But with the .word class it is not returning the object "this". Please someone suggest a solution for this. Thank you

Answer 1

Why not just toggle a class on dblclick ?

I also added a handler for left & right arrow keys combined with the shift key .

It checks e.keyCode for the left & right arrow values 37 or 39 .

Then it checks e.shiftKey to see if shift is pressed.

 $('#passage_response .word').on('dblclick', function() { $('.word').removeClass('highlight'); $(this).addClass('highlight'); }); $(document).on('keyup',function(e){ e = e || window.event; switch(e.keyCode){ case 37: //LEFT ARROW if($('.word.highlight').length){ if(e.shiftKey){ //SHIFT + LEFT $('.word.highlight').last().removeClass('highlight'); }else{ //LEFT ONLY $('.word.highlight').removeClass('highlight').prev('.word').addClass('highlight'); } }else{ $('.word').eq(0).addClass('highlight'); } break; case 39: //RIGHT ARROW if($('.word.highlight').length){ if(e.shiftKey){ //RIGHT + SHIFT $('.word.highlight').last().next('.word').addClass('highlight'); }else{ //RIGHT ONLY $('.word.highlight').removeClass('highlight').next('.word').addClass('highlight'); } }else{ $('.word').eq(0).addClass('highlight'); } break; } });

 .highlight{ font-weight: bold; }

 <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <div id="passage_response" contenteditable="true"> <span class="word" num="0"> In </span> <span class="word" num="1"> this </span> <span class="word" num="2"> bug, </span> <span class="word" num="3"> issue </span> <span class="word" num="4"> no </span> <span class="word" num="5"> 1 </span> <span class="word" num="6"> explains </span> </div>

Answer 2

 $('#passage_response .word').bind('dblclick', function() { $(this).css({"color":"blue"}); });

 <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <div id="passage_response" contenteditable="true"> <span class="word" num="0"> In </span> <span class="word" num="1"> this </span> <span class="word" num="2"> bug, </span> <span class="word" num="3"> issue </span> <span class="word" num="4"> no </span> <span class="word" num="5"> 1 </span> <span class="word" num="6"> explains </span> </div>