YUI editor (RTE): How to wrap selection with a <span> and NOT lose formatting?

Question

Ok so I've got a problem I've been working on for the last week or so and have tried everything I know or could find. I am using YUI 2.x editor where users will be doing some heavy formatting. I have an external button on the page that needs to wrap the selected text in a <span> when the user clicks it, but it must do this without loosing any formatting. For some reason doing the following likes to erase all of the formatting in the selection:

var sel = myEditor._getSelection();
var newEl = '<span>' + sel + '</span>';
myEditor.execCommand('inserthtml', newEl);

So to solve this, I think the best way is to use _getSelectedElement() along with _createCurrentElement('span') to add back the style elements. Here's what I've got so far:

function createSpan() {
  var el = myEditor._getSelectedElement();
  var sel = myEditor._getSelection();

  // IE support
  if (document.selection) {
    sel = myEditor._getDoc().selection.createRange();
    newText = sel.text;
  }
  else {
    newText = sel;
  }

  // Create the new element with the old styles
  myEditor._createCurrentElement('span', {color: el.style.color, fontSize: el.style.fontSize, fontFamily: el.style.fontFamily});
  myEditor._selectNode(myEditor.currentElement[0]);
  myEditor.currentElement[0].innerHTML = newText;
  return myEditor.currentElement[0];
}

This works great if _getSelectedElement() properly returns the element with the correct styles, but I have found that if a user selects an entire paragraph, it will return the BODY. And since the BODY doesn't have any styles, they again get lost.

Basically, I need it to behave like the Bold button on the toolbar but use a <span> and not <b>. Why is this so hard?

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks!

Catamaran

Answer 1

Turns out all you have to do is:

myEditor._createCurrentElement('span');
newEl = myEditor.currentElement[0];

_createCurrentElement internally creates a new element with the current selection as the innerHTML and preserves the formatting for you. So simple...thanks to Dav Glass for his help. Check out his post here: http://yuilibrary.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=5436&p=18659#p18659

Catamaran

Actually this still doesn't work. Any help would be appreciated. – Catamaran

Answer 2

Try this:

function toHTML(docFragment) {
    var d = this._getDoc().createElement('div');
    d.appendChild(docFragment);
    return d.innerHTML;
}

var ie = false;
if (this._getWindow().getSelection) { 
    var selectedText = this._getWindow().getSelection(); 
} else if ( this._getDoc().getSelection ) { 
    var selectedText = this._getDoc().getSelection(); 
} else if ( this._getDoc().selection ) { 
    ie = true;
    var selectedText = this._getDoc().selection.createRange();
} 
if (!ie) {
    var theParent = selectedText.getRangeAt(0).cloneContents(); 
    var selection = toHTML(theParent);
} else {
    var selection = selectedText.htmlText;
}

var span = this._getDoc().createElement('span');

span.innerHTML = selection;

if (!ie) {
    var rang = selectedText.getRangeAt(0);
    if ($.browser.mozilla) {
        var rangeObj = this._getDoc().createRange();
        var documentFragment = rangeObj.createContextualFragment(span.outerHTML);
    } else {
        var d = this._getDoc().createElement('div');
        d.innerHTML = span.outerHTML;
        var docFrag = this._getDoc().createDocumentFragment();
        while (d.firstChild) {
            docFrag.appendChild(d.firstChild);
        };
        var documentFragment = docFrag;
    }
    rang.collapse(false);
    rang.deleteContents();
    rang.insertNode(documentFragment);
} else {
    this._getDoc().selection.createRange().pasteHTML(span.outerHTML);
}

Kallick