contenteditable, set caret at the end of the text (cross-browser)

caret, contenteditable, cross-browser, html, javascript

Solution

The following function will do it in all major browsers:

function placeCaretAtEnd(el) {
    el.focus();
    if (typeof window.getSelection != "undefined"
            && typeof document.createRange != "undefined") {
        var range = document.createRange();
        range.selectNodeContents(el);
        range.collapse(false);
        var sel = window.getSelection();
        sel.removeAllRanges();
        sel.addRange(range);
    } else if (typeof document.body.createTextRange != "undefined") {
        var textRange = document.body.createTextRange();
        textRange.moveToElementText(el);
        textRange.collapse(false);
        textRange.select();
    }
}

placeCaretAtEnd( document.querySelector('p') );
p{ padding:.5em; border:1px solid black; }
<p contentEditable>foo bar </p>

Placing the caret at the start is almost identical: it just requires changing the Boolean passed into the calls to `collapse()`. Here's an example that creates functions for placing the caret at the start and at the end:

function createCaretPlacer(atStart) {
    return function(el) {
        el.focus();
        if (typeof window.getSelection != "undefined"
                && typeof document.createRange != "undefined") {
            var range = document.createRange();
            range.selectNodeContents(el);
            range.collapse(atStart);
            var sel = window.getSelection();
            sel.removeAllRanges();
            sel.addRange(range);
        } else if (typeof document.body.createTextRange != "undefined") {
            var textRange = document.body.createTextRange();
            textRange.moveToElementText(el);
            textRange.collapse(atStart);
            textRange.select();
        }
    };
}

var placeCaretAtStart = createCaretPlacer(true);
var placeCaretAtEnd = createCaretPlacer(false);

Problem

output in Chrome: ``` <div id="content" contenteditable="true" style="border:1px solid #000;width:500px;height:40px;"> hey <div>what's up?</div> <div> <button id="insert_caret"></button> ``` I believe in FF it would look something like this: ``` hey <br /> what's up? ``` and in IE: ``` hey <p>what's up?</p> ``` unfortunately, there is no nice way of making it so that every browser inserts a `<br />` instead of a div- or p-tag, or at least I couldn't find anything online. ANYWAY, what I am trying to do now is, when I hit the button, I want the caret to be set at the end of the text, so it should look something like this: ``` hey what's up?| ``` any way to do this so it works in all browser? example: ``` $(document).ready(function() { $('#insert_caret').click(function() { var ele = $('#content'); var length = ele.html().length; ele.focus(); //set caret -> end pos } } ```

Original source

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