Insert an HTML element in a contentEditable element

Question

I have a contentEditable div where I want to insert HTML tags (a simple span element).

Is there a cross browser solution that allows me to insert those tags over my div selection or cursor position. If something else is selected on the page (not in the div), I want to append the tag to the end of the div.

Thanks

Answer 1

Here is a kickstart

// get the selection range (or cursor     position)
var range = window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0); 
// create a span
var newElement = document.createElement('span');
newElement.id = 'myId';
newElement.innerHTML = 'Hello World!';

// if the range is in #myDiv ;)
if(range.startContainer.parentNode.id==='myDiv') {
   // delete whatever is on the range
   range.deleteContents();
   // place your span
   range.insertNode(newElement);
}

I don't have IE but works fine on firefox, chrome and safari. Maybe you want to play with range.startContainer to proceed only if the selection is made on the contentEditable div.

EDIT: According to quirksmode range intro you have to change the window.getSelection() part to be IE compatible.

var userSelection;
if (window.getSelection) {
    userSelection = window.getSelection();
}
else if (document.selection) { // should come last; Opera!
    userSelection = document.selection.createRange();
}

Answer 2

The following will do this in all major browsers (including IE 6). It will also handle cases where the end of the selection is outside your <div> and cases where the selection is contained within a child (or more deeply nested) element inside the <div> .

2019 addendum : The second branch of insertNodeOverSelection is for IE <= 8 only and could be removed now.

 function isOrContainsNode(ancestor, descendant) { var node = descendant; while (node) { if (node === ancestor) return true; node = node.parentNode; } return false; } function insertNodeOverSelection(node, containerNode) { var sel, range, html; if (window.getSelection) { sel = window.getSelection(); if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) { range = sel.getRangeAt(0); if (isOrContainsNode(containerNode, range.commonAncestorContainer)) { range.deleteContents(); range.insertNode(node); } else { containerNode.appendChild(node); } } } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) { range = document.selection.createRange(); if (isOrContainsNode(containerNode, range.parentElement())) { html = (node.nodeType == 3) ? node.data : node.outerHTML; range.pasteHTML(html); } else { containerNode.appendChild(node); } } } 

 <input type="button" onmousedown="insertNodeOverSelection(document.createTextNode('[NODE]'), document.getElementById('test'));" value="insert"> <div contenteditable="true"> <div id="test" style="background-color: lightgoldenrodyellow"> This is the editable element where the insertion will happen. Select something or place the cursor in here, then hit the button above </div> <div> No insertion will happen here </div> </div>