jQuery Quick Tip: Select text on focus

Just a quick tip on how to select all text when focus is given to a textarea or input (only if the value has not changed) .

$("input, textarea").focus(
 function()
 {
  // only select if the text has not changed
  if(this.value == this.defaultValue)
  {
   this.select();
  }
 }
)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thx for this tip.
My problem solved, hehe :D
8:00 am, September 18, 2008
Jethro Larson said…
Thanks. I didn't even know the defaultValue property existed.
7:22 pm, December 10, 2008
Anonymous said…
Thanks, your post helped me to solve this problem in about 20 seconds.
1:44 pm, March 06, 2009
Anonymous said…
Quick and simple, thanks. Maybe it would be better if you directly select the spec. input field using the jQuery css selectors for attr. like this: $('input[name=name-of-inputfield]').focus(...));
2:35 pm, March 21, 2009
chris said…
thanks! doesn't appear to work in chrome. it will select the text then it gets deselected immediately after.
9:38 pm, August 10, 2009
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Select box manipulation with jQuery

If you read the jQuery mailing list , you may be aware that I have updated my plugins for working with select boxes . Summary of changes: addOption replaces any options with the same value (so think of it as an add/replace options plugin selectOptions selected options in addition to what was already selected, but there is now an option for it not to do this There are two new methods: copyOptions which is for copying options between select boxes ajaxAddOption allows you to add options via AJAX (i.e. could be used for create options dynamically from a server script)
Read more

iTextSharp: Generating a Basic PDF file (ASP.NET/C#)

iTextSharp is free library for .NET that allows you to create PDF documents. It can be used to dynamically create PDF's which can be streamed to the user. As there is no HTML being sent to the user, a WebHandler (ashx file) is a more appropriate way to generate your PDF than an aspx page. Download itextsharp-3.0.10-dll.zip (latest version as of 08 Feb 2006) and save the dll in the archive to your websites bin directory. Here is a basic sample of creating a PDF (more complex samples may follow in future posts). BasicPDF.ashx <%@ WebHandler Language="C#" Class="MyNamespace.BasicPDF" %> using System; using System.IO; using System.Web; using iTextSharp.text; using iTextSharp.text.pdf; namespace MyNamespace { public class BasicPDF: IHttpHandler { public bool IsReusable { get { return true; } } /// <summary> /// Font used for any hyperlinks added to the PDF /// </summary> private Font LinkFont { get
Read more

Popup Window Countdown (JavaScript)

This code opens a new popup window that contains a timer that counts down, then closes the window when it reaches 0. Will not work if user has a popup blocker blocking the page. <html> <head> <title>Popup Timer</title> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript"> // popup window var var popup; // At what number shall the countdown counter start? CounterStart = 10; // This function CustomAction() can be modified to do // whatever you want done every second. function CustomAction() { popup.document.timer.timeleft.value = CounterStart; } // end of function CustomAction() // end of JavaScript customization function Decrement() { CounterStart--; CustomAction(); if(CounterStart <= 0) { popup.close(); alert('Timer reached 0'); } else { setTimeout('Decrement()',1000); } } function StartTheCounter() { openPopup(120,100); setTimeout('Decrement()',1000); } f
Read more