Javascript – Problems with contenteditable in Firefox

contenteditablefirefoxhtmljavascriptwysiwyg

I am working on a Javascript WYSIWYG editor in Firefox. I am using a div with the contenteditable attribute set to true in order to accomplish this (I cannot use a contenteditable iframe for this particular project). This contenteditable div is nested in another div that is not contenteditable. I am encountering the following two problems when using execCommand to apply formatting, including font style and size, as well as bold, italic, and underline:

When all text in the div is selected, execCommand simply does not work. execCommand works fine when only part of the text is selected, but does nothing when all of the text is selected.
Applying formatting with no text selected yields unexpected results. For example, when calling execCommand('bold') with no text selected and then typing results in bold text being typed until a spacebar is inserted, at which point the bold formatting is lost (until another space is inserted, interestingly enough; then the text becomes bold again).

To see what I mean, please try running the following HTML code in Firefox 3:

<html>
<head><title></title></head>
<body>
<button onClick="execCommand('bold', false, null);">Bold</button>
<div style="width: 300px; border: 1px solid #000000;">
<div contenteditable="true">Some editable text</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Please try the following:

Select the word "Some" only. Click the Bold button. This will make the text bold, as expected.
Select the entire phrase "Some editable text" (either manually or using CTRL-A). Click the Bold button. Nothing happens. This demonstrates the first bug shown above.
Hit the backspace key to clear the div. Click the Bold button and begin typing. Type a few words with spaces. This will demonstrate the second bug.

Any ideas on what could be causing these problems and how to work around them would be greatly appreciated!

Best Answer

Interesting. In Firefox 3.6.3, I can't replicate the first problem: selecting all of the editable text and pressing the button toggles boldness as expected. However, the other two issues I do see. They'll be bugs in Mozilla's implementation of contenteditable.

Interestingly, the alternate-words-bold problem doesn't happen if you use designMode rather than contenteditable. I suspect it will solve your other problem too. This involves making the whole document editable, rather than just elements within it:

window.onload = function() {
    document.designMode = "on";
};

If this isn't an option and you need the fine control that contenteditable provides, you'll need to implement your own version of the bold command using DOM manipulation and Ranges. This will be quite involved to get working in IE and non-IE browsers.

Modern HTML5 Techniques for changing classes

Modern browsers have added classList which provides methods to make it easier to manipulate classes without needing a library:

document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.add('MyClass');

document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.remove('MyClass');

if ( document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.contains('MyClass') )

document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.toggle('MyClass');

Unfortunately, these do not work in Internet Explorer prior to v10, though there is a shim to add support for it to IE8 and IE9, available from this page. It is, though, getting more and more supported.

Simple cross-browser solution

The standard JavaScript way to select an element is using document.getElementById("Id"), which is what the following examples use - you can of course obtain elements in other ways, and in the right situation may simply use this instead - however, going into detail on this is beyond the scope of the answer.

To change all classes for an element:

To replace all existing classes with one or more new classes, set the className attribute:

document.getElementById("MyElement").className = "MyClass";

(You can use a space-delimited list to apply multiple classes.)

To add an additional class to an element:

To add a class to an element, without removing/affecting existing values, append a space and the new classname, like so:

document.getElementById("MyElement").className += " MyClass";

To remove a class from an element:

To remove a single class to an element, without affecting other potential classes, a simple regex replace is required:

document.getElementById("MyElement").className =
   document.getElementById("MyElement").className.replace
      ( /(?:^|\s)MyClass(?!\S)/g , '' )
/* Code wrapped for readability - above is all one statement */

An explanation of this regex is as follows:

(?:^|\s) # Match the start of the string or any single whitespace character

MyClass  # The literal text for the classname to remove

(?!\S)   # Negative lookahead to verify the above is the whole classname
         # Ensures there is no non-space character following
         # (i.e. must be the end of the string or space)

The g flag tells the replace to repeat as required, in case the class name has been added multiple times.

To check if a class is already applied to an element:

The same regex used above for removing a class can also be used as a check as to whether a particular class exists:

if ( document.getElementById("MyElement").className.match(/(?:^|\s)MyClass(?!\S)/) )

### Assigning these actions to onclick events:

Whilst it is possible to write JavaScript directly inside the HTML event attributes (such as onclick="this.className+=' MyClass'") this is not recommended behaviour. Especially on larger applications, more maintainable code is achieved by separating HTML markup from JavaScript interaction logic.

The first step to achieving this is by creating a function, and calling the function in the onclick attribute, for example:

<script type="text/javascript">
    function changeClass(){
        // Code examples from above
    }
</script>
...
<button onclick="changeClass()">My Button</button>

_{(It is not required to have this code in script tags, this is simply for the brevity of example, and including the JavaScript in a distinct file may be more appropriate.)}

The second step is to move the onclick event out of the HTML and into JavaScript, for example using addEventListener

<script type="text/javascript">
    function changeClass(){
        // Code examples from above
    }

    window.onload = function(){
        document.getElementById("MyElement").addEventListener( 'click', changeClass);
    }
</script>
...
<button id="MyElement">My Button</button>

(Note that the window.onload part is required so that the contents of that function are executed after the HTML has finished loading - without this, the MyElement might not exist when the JavaScript code is called, so that line would fail.)

JavaScript Frameworks and Libraries

The above code is all in standard JavaScript, however, it is common practice to use either a framework or a library to simplify common tasks, as well as benefit from fixed bugs and edge cases that you might not think of when writing your code.

Whilst some people consider it overkill to add a ~50 KB framework for simply changing a class, if you are doing any substantial amount of JavaScript work or anything that might have unusual cross-browser behavior, it is well worth considering.

(Very roughly, a library is a set of tools designed for a specific task, whilst a framework generally contains multiple libraries and performs a complete set of duties.)

The examples above have been reproduced below using jQuery, probably the most commonly used JavaScript library (though there are others worth investigating too).

(Note that $ here is the jQuery object.)

Changing Classes with jQuery:

$('#MyElement').addClass('MyClass');

$('#MyElement').removeClass('MyClass');

if ( $('#MyElement').hasClass('MyClass') )

In addition, jQuery provides a shortcut for adding a class if it doesn't apply, or removing a class that does:

$('#MyElement').toggleClass('MyClass');

### Assigning a function to a click event with jQuery:

$('#MyElement').click(changeClass);

or, without needing an id:

$(':button:contains(My Button)').click(changeClass);

Javascript – Setting “checked” for a checkbox with jQuery

Modern jQuery

Use .prop():

$('.myCheckbox').prop('checked', true);
$('.myCheckbox').prop('checked', false);

DOM API

If you're working with just one element, you can always just access the underlying HTMLInputElement and modify its .checked property:

$('.myCheckbox')[0].checked = true;
$('.myCheckbox')[0].checked = false;

The benefit to using the .prop() and .attr() methods instead of this is that they will operate on all matched elements.

jQuery 1.5.x and below

The .prop() method is not available, so you need to use .attr().

$('.myCheckbox').attr('checked', true);
$('.myCheckbox').attr('checked', false);

Note that this is the approach used by jQuery's unit tests prior to version 1.6 and is preferable to using $('.myCheckbox').removeAttr('checked'); since the latter will, if the box was initially checked, change the behaviour of a call to .reset() on any form that contains it – a subtle but probably unwelcome behaviour change.

For more context, some incomplete discussion of the changes to the handling of the checked attribute/property in the transition from 1.5.x to 1.6 can be found in the version 1.6 release notes and the Attributes vs. Properties section of the .prop() documentation.