Characters preceding the cursor

Question

Is it possible to retrieve the index into a text area that the cursor is at using the keydown event?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 22 '11 at 17:52

2

Yes, it is.

textarea.addEventListener('keydown', function (){
    console.log(textarea.selectionEnd); //The position of the cursor. If something is selected, then the position of the end of the selection.
}, false);

This function won't work for IE. In IE you'd have to use document.createTextRange().

answered Dec 22 '11 at 17:52

Some Guy

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I know it works in Firefox, Safari. Does it work in IE? – Akhil Dec 22 '11 at 17:54
1

@Akhil As I've said in the answer, no, it won't. – Some Guy Dec 22 '11 at 17:57

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:11

0

Please refer the below link for the implementation. You can call the getCaret function on your keydown event to get the index of the caret:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/263796/639960

edited May 23 '17 at 12:11

Community

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answered Dec 22 '11 at 17:52

Akhil

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Characters preceding the cursor

2 Answers2