Specifying Where To Focus Within Textarea

Question

I have a textarea...

<textarea>
Some writing here
*
Then some more on another line
</textarea>

What I want to do is focus the user where the * is. Is this possible?

Answer 1

Use the following function to set a selection within a textarea.

function setSelRange(inputEl, selStart, selEnd) { 
   if (inputEl.setSelectionRange) { 
     inputEl.focus(); 
     inputEl.setSelectionRange(selStart, selEnd); 
   } else if (inputEl.createTextRange) { 
     var range = inputEl.createTextRange(); 
     range.collapse(true); 
     range.moveEnd('character', selEnd); 
     range.moveStart('character', selStart); 
     range.select(); 
   } 
}
// From http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum91/4527.htm

So, in your case, you can search for the position of the * character and use that value in a call like this:

var pos = 17; // Set this to the position of the * character.
setSelRange(document.getElementById('textareaId'), pos, pos);

Answer 2

just to make your burden lighter.

<textarea id="myarea">
Some writing here
*
Then some more on another line
</textarea>


function FocusMe(what){ // what = character to be focused(in your case *)
 var cFocus = document.getElemenById("myarea").innerHTML;
 var pos = cFocus.indexOf(what);
 setSelRange(document.getElementById('myarea'), pos, pos); //Jame's answer above.
}