Select currently focused element

Question

I'd like to find the currently focused element in the whole document. I tried using the :focus pseudoclass introduced with jQuery 1.6:

$(document).find(":focus")

But $(document).find(":focus").length always returns 0

Answer 1

You should be able to use the activeElement property of the document:

var focus = $(document.activeElement);

If you look at the jQuery documentation for :focus it makes this perfectly clear:

If you are looking for the currently focused element, $( document.activeElement ) will retrieve it without having to search the whole DOM tree.

It's worth noting that if no element currently has focus, activeElement will refer to the body.