Help inserting text into existing innerHTML object??

[holmescreek]

I've built a WYSIWYG dhtml editor. Inserting links, images and all that stuff is pretty string forward using execCommand().


I'm looking for a way where as when a user clicks on a a © button my script will insert a character, such as a copyright symbol, at the current insertion point of an innerHTML object.

For instance the innerHTML is initally set to :

foo.innerHTML = 'Wrangler jeans are the best';


When a user places their cursor after the word Wrangler, then presses the © button, the script would change innerHTML to :


'Wrangler© jeans are the best';


Any ideas? I've been looking for a solution for hours.


Thought: I'm sure there is a javascript function to insert text into a string (innerHTML) at a certain location, however, how do I retrieve the current location of the insertion point?

Help is greatly appreciated!

[beetle]

Is all your editing done withing a textarea? or ???

[jkd]

This is done in Gecko browsers (NS6+, Mozilla, etc) via the selectionStart property of a textarea - it refers to the start of the selection (a caret could be considered a collapsed selection).

ta.value = ta.value.substring(0, ta.selectionStart) + 'something else' + ta.value.substr(ta.selectionStart);

Where ta is a reference to the textarea.

To do this in IE, you have to do something with its TextRange interface... webreference.com has a tutorial on it I think.

[Danamal]

I'm still not very clear on how this is done...