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Mon, 06/18/2012 - 08:17

req

Joined: 13/03/2012

Posts: 76

GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

I have a situation where I need users to be able to select and act on, elements like lists so that it's possible to detect if a child/descendant like <li> is selected or if the parent like <ul> is selected. Users would switch to the parent using the elementspath plugin / bottom bar tag breadcrumbs.

For example on a document like this:

<ul>
    <li>Something</li>
    <li>Something</li>
</ul>

Users must be able to target the ul element. I tried the following, but GetSelectedElement() always returns null!

var selection = editor.getSelection();
var test = selection.GetSelectedElement();
debug(test); // This is null, I expected it to be ul

This is how I can get the first child of the selection, but I need to retrieve the parent!

var selection = editor.getSelection();
var element = selection.getStartElement();
debug(element); // This returns the first LI element

How would I gain access to the parent element?

Mon, 06/18/2012 - 12:16

req

Joined: 13/03/2012

Posts: 76

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null, can I get selected pare

Actually, this seems to be a bug. The code examples above work as expected in Firefox, but when using Chrome and IE9 they fail in the described manner.

Is there a workaround? This is a critical function.

Mon, 06/18/2012 - 12:55

sebstefanov

Joined: 03/02/2012

Posts: 1329

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

I do believe it's a confirmed bug. No proposed workarounds yet.

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Mon, 06/18/2012 - 13:06

req

Joined: 13/03/2012

Posts: 76

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

In that case, would it be possible that I be added to the CC of that bug instance? I registered to trac but did not see an option to do so, if it is even possible. This is a critical issue for us and I would really like to get updated on any progress made. I can try to have a look at it myself, but I don't really know the insides CKEditor.

Also, is there a way to I could "vote up" the bug to bump it's priority?

Mon, 06/18/2012 - 15:36

alfonsoml

Joined: 31/12/2006

Posts: 3737

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

Given a node, you can easily get its parent: http://docs.cksource.com/ckeditor_api/s ... #getParent
now you can check if it's the node that you want, or if you want to keep on searching or anything else.

Mon, 06/18/2012 - 16:18

req

Joined: 13/03/2012

Posts: 76

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

alfonsoml wrote:Given a node, you can easily get its parent: http://docs.cksource.com/ckeditor_api/s ... #getParent
now you can check if it's the node that you want, or if you want to keep on searching or anything else.

Mon, 06/18/2012 - 17:08

alfonsoml

Joined: 31/12/2006

Posts: 3737

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

There's a basic misconception here: getSelectedElement will return only elements handled as "object" by the browser, that means usually images, of if you select a whole table, the table object, but if you select a link or a paragraph, that's not an object.

You'll have to dig a little into the code to understand it better unless you can find someone else explaining better how to handle the selection and your current problems.

Tue, 06/19/2012 - 08:53

req

Joined: 13/03/2012

Posts: 76

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

getSelectedElement will return only elements handled as "object" by the browser

Tue, 06/19/2012 - 20:23

alfonsoml

Joined: 31/12/2006

Posts: 3737

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

I just replied to your original question about how to get the parent of a node, explaining all the problems that exist while handling the selection in the browsers is not my goal.

You can ask the browser to select a node and it might react in different ways, it can select just that node correctly, or move the boundaries to some other node, it depends on each browser and the type of selection that you want to perform (it's not the same to select a <p> than a <tr>, also empty nodes are problematic for Opera and Webkit IIRC)

In a general way when you have a selection marked by the pipes as this

<p>this |is <span>some text</span> in the| content

Which is the "selected element"?
is not the p because it's not fully selected, and it's not the span because there's also text selected beyond its boundaries.

So the correct statement is that there's a range selected with two boundary points, and you can use them to check the selection according to your needs.

Wed, 06/20/2012 - 08:05

#10

req

Joined: 13/03/2012

Posts: 76

Re: GetSelectedElement returns null in IE and Chrome, BUG?

alfonsoml wrote:
In a general way when you have a selection marked by the pipes as this
<p>this |is <span>some text</span> in the| content
Which is the "selected element"?
is not the p because it's not fully selected, and it's not the span because there's also text selected beyond its boundaries.

I think I get it now, thank you for taking the time to explain it to me and sorry for being so slow! My problem in thinking was that I wasn't really thinking about it as a selection, rather that I had just clicked on an element so I should gain access to that targeted element. I think I'll try my "hack" approach to get to my goal, at least until issue 7928 is closed.