Detecting and Managing Selected Text

Question

I'm trying to write JavaScript that manages the text a user selects in a webpage, but I'm not sure where to begin; i.e., I was wondering if there was a way to limit the ability to select/highlight text so that the selection ends at a terminating punctuation mark, and the user cannot select anymore (And possibly trigger an alert window or send an event when that limit is first reached). Also, is there a way to change the colour of highlighted/selected text in a browser? I'm familiar with JavaScript pointer and click events, but I'm having trouble finding any information on what I'm looking for.

Thanks in advance.

you can use css3 to adjust the color and prevent selection on a single element. — dandavis, Dec 24 '14 at 22:20

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

2

You want to look at window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);

I found this answer pretty useful when I was looking at that:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/12823606

The context there is specifically highlighting, but obviously once you have the text you can do other things with it.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

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answered Dec 24 '14 at 22:17

David Carlisle

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Detecting and Managing Selected Text

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