Html/Text selection in IE10

Question

I need the ability to select a range of HTML by giving it an ID selector. What I have below works great in Chrome and Firefox, but not in IE 10 (standard mode). (older version of IE are not a concern for this)

function selectElementContents(elementId) {
    var elemToSelect = document.getElementById(elementId);
    var selection= window.getSelection();
    var rangeToSelect = document.createRange();
    rangeToSelect.selectNodeContents(elemToSelect);
    //console.log(rangeToSelect);
    selection.removeAllRanges();
    selection.addRange(rangeToSelect);
}

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/7Jayc/

The strange part is that the line console.log(rangeToSelect) will absolutely log the correct text in IE 10, but it will not select it.

Marmot

As it turns out, this code was working for me in IE 10, but I was running into another bug with IE where this wouldn't work correctly when displayed in a modal window. I changed the layout of the page and this works fine now. – Marmot

were you able to select text inside a modal window in IE? – Baltoslavic

No, it was not working in a modal in IE10. – Marmot

Answer 1

This worked in all browsers for me:

function selectElementContents(elementId) {
    var elemToSelect = document.getElementById(elementId);

    if (document.createRange) {     // all browsers but IE
        var selection = window.getSelection();
        var rangeToSelect = document.createRange();
        rangeToSelect.selectNodeContents(elemToSelect);
        //console.log(rangeToSelect);
        selection.removeAllRanges();
        selection.addRange(rangeToSelect);
    }
    else {      // IE
        var rangeObj = document.body.createTextRange();
        rangeObj.moveToElementText(elemToSelect);
        rangeObj.select();
    }
}

Dahl

Thanks, but see my comment above on the original question. This code is good, but not specific to IE 10. The case for IE here actually is for IE9 and lower I believe, not IE 10. – Marmot

I know, I'm just saying that document.createRange exists in IE 10, and that is why it works there. The else case is not needed since it is for IE <=9 and I don't need to support it. – Marmot