How to get selected word when double-click on div, p, span?

Question

Can you get the word the user has double-clicked on? I've tried in a onDblClick eventhandler but selectionStart is undefined there; and the onselect event seems to be available only for TextArea.

Answer 1

You can use document.selection.createRange().text in IE, and window.getSelection().toString() in firefox and webkit, and attach to the ondblclick handler like so:

document.ondblclick = function () {
   var sel = (document.selection && document.selection.createRange().text) ||
             (window.getSelection && window.getSelection().toString());
   alert(sel);
};

References:

• MSDN, for document.selection
• MDN, for window.getSelection()