Selection.setBaseAndExtent()
Experimental
This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.
The setBaseAndExtent()
method of the
Selection
interface sets the selection to be a range including all or
parts of two specified DOM nodes, and any content located between them.
Syntax
sel.setBaseAndExtent(anchorNode,anchorOffset,focusNode,focusOffset)
Parameters
anchorNode
- The node at the start of the selection.
anchorOffset
- The number of child nodes from the start of the anchor node that should be excluded from the selection. So for example, if the value is 0 the whole node is included. If the value is 1, the whole node minus the first child node is included. And so on.
focusNode
- The node at the end of the selection.
focusOffset
- The number of child nodes from the start of the focus node that should be included in the selection. So for example, if the value is 0 the whole node is excluded. If the value is 1, the first child node is included. And so on.
Note: If the focus position appears before the anchor position in the document, the direction of the selection is reversed â the caret is placed at the beginning of the text rather the end, which matters for any keyboard command that might follow. For example, Shift + âĄī¸ would cause the selection to narrow from the beginning rather than grow at the end.
Return Value
Void.
Exceptions
If anchorOffset
is larger than the number of child nodes inside
anchorNode
, or if focusOffset
is larger than the number of
child nodes inside focusNode
, an IndexSizeError
exception is
thrown.
Examples
In this example, we have two paragraphs containing spans, each one containing a single
word. The first one is set as the anchorNode
and the second is set as the
focusNode
. We also have an additional paragraph that sits in between the
two nodes.
Next, we have two form inputs that allow you to set the anchorOffset
and
focusOffset
â they both have a default value of 0.
We also have a button that when pressed invokes a function that runs the
setBaseAndExtent()
method with the specified offsets, and copies the
selection into the output paragraph at the very bottom of the HTML.
<h1>setBaseAndExtent example</h1>
<div>
<p class="one"><span>Fish</span><span>Dog</span><span>Cat</span><span>Bird</span></p>
<p>MIDDLE</p>
<p class="two"><span>Car</span><span>Bike</span><span>Boat</span><span>Plane</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p>
<label for="aOffset">Anchor offset</label>
<input id="aOffset" name="aOffset" type="number" value="0">
</p>
<p>
<label for="fOffset">Focus offset</label>
<input id="fOffset" name="fOffset" type="number" value="0">
</p>
<p><button>Capture selection</button></p>
</div>
<p><strong>Output</strong>: <span class="output"></span></p>
The JavaScript looks like so:
var one = document.querySelector('.one');
var two = document.querySelector('.two');
var aOffset = document.getElementById('aOffset');
var fOffset = document.getElementById('fOffset');
var button = document.querySelector('button');
var output = document.querySelector('.output');
var selection;
button.onclick = function() {
try {
selection = document.getSelection();
selection.setBaseAndExtent(one, aOffset.value, two, fOffset.value);
var text = selection.toString();
output.textContent = text;
} catch(e) {
output.textContent = e.message;
}
}
Play with the live example below, setting different offset values to see how this affects the selection.
Note: You can find this example on GitHub (see it live also.)
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
Selection API The definition of 'Selection.setBaseAndExtent()' in that specification. |
Working Draft |
Browser compatibility
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