Get selected text on the page (not in a textarea) with jQuery

Question

This plugin lets you grab text the user has selected in a textarea, and this site has non-jQuery-based instructions for grabbing text the user has selected outside of a text area.

I'm wondering whether the functionality of the latter is available in any jQuery plugin.

Edit: Also, is it possible to get the starting and ending indexes of the selection? I.e., where the selection starts and ends within the containing element?

Answer 1

The reason it's hard to find a plug-in for this isn't that it isn't very "jQuery"ish. By that I mean that jQuery plugins normally operate on jQuery objects and the selection has nothing to do with any elements.

Edit: I missed the fact you posted this link in your question but I'll leave it below for completeness since my version is formatted better (but otherwise identical). :)

<script language=javascript>
function getSelText() {
  var txt = '';
  if (window.getSelection) {
    txt = window.getSelection();
  } else if (document.getSelection) {
    txt = document.getSelection();
  } else if (document.selection) {
    txt = document.selection.createRange().text;
  } else return;
  document.aform.selectedtext.value =  txt;
}
</script>
<input type="button" value="Get selection" onmousedown="getSelText()"> 
<form name=aform >
<textarea name="selectedtext" rows="5" cols="20"></textarea>
</form>