jQuery Set Cursor Position in Text Area

Question

How do you set the cursor position in a text field using jQuery? I\'ve got a text field with content, and I want the users cursor to be positioned at a certain offset when

Answer 1

I have two functions:

function setSelectionRange(input, selectionStart, selectionEnd) {
  if (input.setSelectionRange) {
    input.focus();
    input.setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd);
  }
  else if (input.createTextRange) {
    var range = input.createTextRange();
    range.collapse(true);
    range.moveEnd('character', selectionEnd);
    range.moveStart('character', selectionStart);
    range.select();
  }
}

function setCaretToPos (input, pos) {
  setSelectionRange(input, pos, pos);
}

Then you can use setCaretToPos like this:

setCaretToPos(document.getElementById("YOURINPUT"), 4);

Live example with both a textarea and an input, showing use from jQuery:

function setSelectionRange(input, selectionStart, selectionEnd) {
  if (input.setSelectionRange) {
    input.focus();
    input.setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd);
  } else if (input.createTextRange) {
    var range = input.createTextRange();
    range.collapse(true);
    range.moveEnd('character', selectionEnd);
    range.moveStart('character', selectionStart);
    range.select();
  }
}

function setCaretToPos(input, pos) {
  setSelectionRange(input, pos, pos);
}

$("#set-textarea").click(function() {
  setCaretToPos($("#the-textarea")[0], 10)
});
$("#set-input").click(function() {
  setCaretToPos($("#the-input")[0], 10);
});

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