Get the offset position of the caret in a textarea in pixels

cross-browser, javascript, jquery, textarea

Solution

Here's an approach using rangyinputs, rangy and jQuery.

It basically copies the whole text from inside the `textarea` into a `div` of the same size. I have set some CSS to ensure that in every browser, the `textarea` and the `div` wrap their content in exactly the same way.

When the `textarea` is clicked, I read out at which character index the caret is positioned, then I insert a caret `span` at the same index inside the `div`. By only doing that I ended up having an issue with the caret `span` jumping back to the previous line if the user clicked at the start of a line. To fix that I check if the previous character is a `space` (which would allow a wrap to occur), if that is `true`, I wrap it in a `span`, and I wrap the next word (the one directly after the caret position) in a `span`. Now I compare the top values between these two `span`'s, if they differ, there was some wrapping going on, so I assume that the `top` and the `left` value of the `#nextword` `span` are equivalent to the caret position.

This approach can still be improved upon, I'm sure I haven't thought of everything that could possibly go wrong, and even if I have, then I haven't bothered implementing a fix for all of them as I don't have the time to do so at the moment, a number of things that you would need to look at:

- it doesn't yet handle hard returns inserted with Enter (fixed)

- positioning breaks when entering multiple spaces in a row (fixed)

- I think hyphens would allow a content wrap to occur as well..

Currently it works exactly the same way across browsers here on Windows 8 with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari. My testing has not been very rigorous though.

Here's a jsFiddle.

I hope it will help you, at the very least it might give you some ideas to build on.

Some Features:

I have included a `ul` for you which is positioned in the right spot, and fixed a Firefox issue where the `textarea` selection was not re-set back to its original spot after the DOM manipulations.

I have added IE7 - IE9 support and fixed the multiple word selection issue pointed out in the comments.

I have added support for hard returns inserted with Enter and multiple spaces in a row.

I have fixed an issue with the default behaviour for the ctrl+shift+left arrow text selection method.

JavaScript

function getTextAreaXandY() {

    // Don't do anything if key pressed is left arrow
    if (e.which == 37) return;     

    // Save selection start
    var selection = $(this).getSelection();
    var index = selection.start;

    // Copy text to div
    $(this).blur();
    $("div").text($(this).val());

    // Get current character
    $(this).setSelection(index, index + 1);
    currentcharacter = $(this).getSelection().text;

    // Get previous character
    $(this).setSelection(index - 1, index)
    previouscharacter = $(this).getSelection().text;

    var start, endchar;
    var end = 0;
    var range = rangy.createRange();

    // If current or previous character is a space or a line break, find the next word and wrap it in a span
    var linebreak = previouscharacter.match(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm) == undefined ? false : true;
    
    if (previouscharacter == ' ' || currentcharacter == ' ' || linebreak) {
        i = index + 1; // Start at the end of the current space        
        while (endchar != ' ' && end < $(this).val().length) {
            i++;
            $(this).setSelection(i, i + 1)
            var sel = $(this).getSelection();
            endchar = sel.text;
            end = sel.start;
        }

        range.setStart($("div")[0].childNodes[0], index);
        range.setEnd($("div")[0].childNodes[0], end);
        var nextword = range.toHtml();
        range.deleteContents();
        var position = $("<span id='nextword'>" + nextword + "</span>")[0];
        range.insertNode(position);
        var nextwordtop = $("#nextword").position().top;
    }

    // Insert `#caret` at the position of the caret
    range.setStart($("div")[0].childNodes[0], index);
    var caret = $("<span id='caret'></span>")[0];
    range.insertNode(caret);
    var carettop = $("#caret").position().top;

    // If preceding character is a space, wrap it in a span
    if (previouscharacter == ' ') {
        range.setStart($("div")[0].childNodes[0], index - 1);
        range.setEnd($("div")[0].childNodes[0], index);
        var prevchar = $("<span id='prevchar'></span>")[0];
        range.insertNode(prevchar);
        var prevchartop = $("#prevchar").position().top;
    }

    // Set textarea selection back to selection start
    $(this).focus();
    $(this).setSelection(index, selection.end);

    // If the top value of the previous character span is not equal to the top value of the next word,
    // there must have been some wrapping going on, the previous character was a space, so the wrapping
    // would have occured after this space, its safe to assume that the left and top value of `#nextword`
    // indicate the caret position
    if (prevchartop != undefined && prevchartop != nextwordtop) {
        $("label").text('X: ' + $("#nextword").position().left + 'px, Y: ' + $("#nextword").position().top);
        $('ul').css('left', ($("#nextword").position().left) + 'px');
        $('ul').css('top', ($("#nextword").position().top + 13) + 'px');
    }
    // if not, then there was no wrapping, we can take the left and the top value from `#caret`    
    else {
        $("label").text('X: ' + $("#caret").position().left + 'px, Y: ' + $("#caret").position().top);
        $('ul').css('left', ($("#caret").position().left) + 'px');
        $('ul').css('top', ($("#caret").position().top + 14) + 'px');
    }

    $('ul').css('display', 'block');
}

$("textarea").click(getTextAreaXandY);
$("textarea").keyup(getTextAreaXandY);

HTML

<div></div>
<textarea>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.</textarea>
<label></label>
<ul>
    <li>Why don't you type this..</li>
</ul>

CSS

body {
    font-family: Verdana;
    font-size: 12px;
    line-height: 14px;
}
textarea, div {
    font-family: Verdana;
    font-size: 12px;
    line-height: 14px;
    width: 300px;
    display: block;
    overflow: hidden;
    border: 1px solid black;
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;
    resize: none;
    min-height: 300px;
    position: absolute;
    -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
    white-space: pre-wrap;
}
span {
    display: inline-block;
    height: 14px;
    position: relative;
}
span#caret {
    display: inline;
}
label {
    display: block;
    margin-left: 320px;
}
ul {
    padding: 0px;
    margin: 9px;
    position: absolute;
    z-index: 999;
    border: 1px solid #000;
    background-color: #FFF;
    list-style-type:none;
    display: none;
}
@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
    span {
        white-space: pre-wrap;
    }
}
div {
    /* Firefox wrapping fix */
    -moz-padding-end: 1.5px;
    -moz-padding-start: 1.5px;
    /* IE8/IE9 wrapping fix */
    padding-right: 5px\0/;
    width: 295px\0/;
}
span#caret
{
    display: inline-block\0/;
}

Problem

In my project I'm trying to get the offset position of the caret in a `textarea` in pixels. Can this be done? Before asking here, I have gone through many links, especially Tim Down's, but I couldn't find a solution which works in IE8+, Chrome and Firefox. It seems Tim Down is working on this. Some other links which I have found have many issues like not finding the top offset of the caret position. I am trying to get the offset position of the caret because I want to show an auto-complete suggestion box inside the `textarea` by positioning it based on the offset position of the caret. PS: I can't use a `contenteditable div` because I have written lots of code related to a `textarea`.

Original source

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