Type the text directly at the current cursor position within the browser

I am working on a modal window that assists in text formatting. Within the window, there are multiple textareas available. However, I do not want the modal to be tied to any specific textarea. Instead, when I click an icon within the modal, I need to insert a string or emoticon wherever the cursor is presently located. How can I determine which element (textarea/input, etc.) the cursor is currently within?

Answer №1

All major browsers now support the document.activeElement property, which helps identify the currently focused field in a window where the cursor is located. To insert text at the current cursor position, you can use the following function:

// Script by: http://alexking.org/blog/2003/06/02/inserting-at-the-cursor-using-javascript
// Enhanced for cross-browser compatibility
function insertAtCursor(targetField, textToInsert) {
  var doc = targetField.ownerDocument;
  // For Internet Explorer
  if (doc.selection) {
    targetField.focus();
    sel = doc.selection.createRange();
    sel.text = textToInsert;
  }
  // For Firefox and other browsers
  else if (targetField.selectionStart || targetField.selectionStart == '0') {
    var startPos = targetField.selectionStart;
    var endPos = targetField.selectionEnd;
    targetField.value = targetField.value.substring(0, startPos) + 
                    textToInsert + targetField.value.substring(endPos, targetField.value.length);
  } 
  // Fallback method to append text at the end
  else {
    targetField.value += textToInsert;
  }
}

Therefore, in your popup, when handling button clicks, you should invoke the following function:

// A fictional but descriptive function name
function insertTextIntoFocusedTextFieldInOpener(textToAdd) {
  var activeField = window.opener.document.activeElement;
  if (activeField.tagName == "TEXTAREA" || (activeField.tagName == "INPUT" && activeField.type == "text")) {
    insertAtCursor(activeField, textToAdd);
  }
}

Answer №2

Checking for the existence of a property like isfocused to determine if a text field is currently in focus may not yield direct results. However, you can set up event handlers for the onFocus event on each text box to keep track of which one is currently focused by storing its ID in a variable for future reference.

If you need further guidance on working with cursor positions and inserting text dynamically based on the currently focused field, consider checking out this tutorial for helpful instructions.

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