Get text from cursor position - SOLUTION

I am looking for something similar to CharFromPos() from MFC that returns the text to the left of the editor.

One idea that I had was to get the selectionStart & selectionEnd position and use the substring() function to get the text, however, I've not been successful at getting the selectionStart.

Any ideas? Please share

thanks,
adico

Tue, 11/24/2009 - 22:52

adico

Joined: 02/11/2009

Posts: 100

Re: Get text from cursor position

C'mon...I am sure someone has written a javascript function to get the text to the left of the editor...If not, I am sure someone has used or knows how to use selectionStart & selectionEnd. Once I can get those, I should be able to write something (which I promise to post)

Thanks in advance for your help.

Mon, 11/30/2009 - 20:29

adico

Joined: 02/11/2009

Posts: 100

Re: Get text from cursor position

Ok, since there were no available solutions, I decided to write my own:

function getCharFromPos(editor)
{
   var sWord = '';
   var endPos = setCursorPos(editor);
   var sText  = editor.document.$.body.innerText;   
   
   while (endPos > 0)
   {
      var ch = sText.charAt( endPos );
      if (ch == ' ')
         break;
         
      sWord += ch;
      endPos--;
   }
         
   return sText.substring(endPos, 1+cursorPos.z);
}

function setCursorPos(editor)
{
   if (!editor)
      return;
         
   var objRange  = editor.document.$.selection.createRange();
   var sOldRange = objRange.text;
   var sTempStr = '%$#'

   //insert the sTempStr where the cursor is at
   objRange.text = sOldRange + sTempStr; objRange.moveStart('character', (0 - sOldRange.length - sTempStr.length));

   //save off the new string with sTempStr 
   var sNewText = editor.document.$.body.innerText; 

   //set the actual text value back to how it was
   objRange.text = sOldRange;

       // locate sTempStr  and get its position
   for (var i=0; i <= sNewText.length; i++) 
   {
      var sTemp = sNewText.substring(i, i + sTempStr.length);
      if (sTemp == sTempStr) 
      {
         var curPos  = (i - sOldRange.length);
         return curPos-1;
      }   
   }
   return 0;
}

To use it, simply call getCharFromPos and pass in your current editor.
i.e: var strText = getCharFromPos(myEditor);

I welcome suggestions & feedback.

Thanks,
adico