Selection: selectAllChildren() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2017.

The Selection.selectAllChildren() method adds all the children of the specified node to the selection. Previous selection is lost.

Syntax

js
selectAllChildren(parentNode)

Parameters

parentNode

All children of parentNode will be selected. parentNode itself is not part of the selection.

Return value

None (undefined).

Examples

HTML

html
<main>
  <button>Select Footer</button>
  <p>Welcome to my website.</p>
  <p>I hope you enjoy your visit.</p>
</main>
<footer>
  <address>webmaster@example.com</address>
  <p>© 2019</p>
</footer>

JavaScript

js
const button = document.querySelector("button");
const footer = document.querySelector("footer");

button.addEventListener("click", (e) => {
  window.getSelection().selectAllChildren(footer);
});

Result

Specifications

Specification
Selection API
# dom-selection-selectallchildren

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
selectAllChildren

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support

See also