[ACCEPTED]-Insert link in contenteditable element-contenteditable

document.execCommand() does this for you in all major browsers:

document.execCommand("CreateLink", false, "http://stackoverflow.com/");

To 6 preserve the selection while your link dialog 5 is displayed, you can use the following 4 functions:

function saveSelection() {
    if (window.getSelection) {
        sel = window.getSelection();
        if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
            var ranges = [];
            for (var i = 0, len = sel.rangeCount; i < len; ++i) {
                ranges.push(sel.getRangeAt(i));
            }
            return ranges;
        }
    } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
        return document.selection.createRange();
    }
    return null;
}

function restoreSelection(savedSel) {
    if (savedSel) {
        if (window.getSelection) {
            sel = window.getSelection();
            sel.removeAllRanges();
            for (var i = 0, len = savedSel.length; i < len; ++i) {
                sel.addRange(savedSel[i]);
            }
        } else if (document.selection && savedSel.select) {
            savedSel.select();
        }
    }
}

jsFiddle example: http://jsfiddle.net/JRKwH/1/

UPDATE

To get hold 3 of the link(s) created (if any were created 2 at all) is tricky. You could use my own 1 Rangy library:

var sel = rangy.getSelection();
if (sel.rangeCount) {
    var links = sel.getRangeAt(0).getNodes([1], function(el) {
        return el.nodeName.toLowerCase() == "a";
    });
    alert(links.length);
}

... or something like the following:

function getLinksInSelection() {
    var selectedLinks = [];
    var range, containerEl, links, linkRange;
    if (window.getSelection) {
        sel = window.getSelection();
        if (sel.getRangeAt && sel.rangeCount) {
            linkRange = document.createRange();
            for (var r = 0; r < sel.rangeCount; ++r) {
                range = sel.getRangeAt(r);
                containerEl = range.commonAncestorContainer;
                if (containerEl.nodeType != 1) {
                    containerEl = containerEl.parentNode;
                }
                if (containerEl.nodeName.toLowerCase() == "a") {
                    selectedLinks.push(containerEl);
                } else {
                    links = containerEl.getElementsByTagName("a");
                    for (var i = 0; i < links.length; ++i) {
                        linkRange.selectNodeContents(links[i]);
                        if (linkRange.compareBoundaryPoints(range.END_TO_START, range) < 1 && linkRange.compareBoundaryPoints(range.START_TO_END, range) > -1) {
                            selectedLinks.push(links[i]);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            linkRange.detach();
        }
    } else if (document.selection && document.selection.type != "Control") {
        range = document.selection.createRange();
        containerEl = range.parentElement();
        if (containerEl.nodeName.toLowerCase() == "a") {
            selectedLinks.push(containerEl);
        } else {
            links = containerEl.getElementsByTagName("a");
            linkRange = document.body.createTextRange();
            for (var i = 0; i < links.length; ++i) {
                linkRange.moveToElementText(links[i]);
                if (linkRange.compareEndPoints("StartToEnd", range) > -1 && linkRange.compareEndPoints("EndToStart", range) < 1) {
                    selectedLinks.push(links[i]);
                } 
            }
        }
    }
    return selectedLinks;
}

jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/JRKwH/3/

Better looking answer:

function link() {
  if (window.getSelection().toString()) {
    var a = document.createElement('a');
    a.href = 'http://www.google.com';
    a.title = 'GOOGLE';
    window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0).surroundContents(a);
  }
}

select some of text then click link button!
<button onclick='link()'>link text to google</button>

This method can be 11 applied anywhere and does not require the 10 element to be contenteidtable.

you can add any event or 9 attributes to the new A element like other 8 elements.

The window.getSelection().toString() checks if some text is actually 7 selected. It works well in chrome, I don't 6 have IE to test, anyway there are other 5 methods to check it. But surroundContents() which is the key 4 part is available in IE9 as suggested by 3 MDN.

Finally I suggest to use an iFrame instead 2 of contenteditable div so there will be 1 no worry about preserving the selection.

As alfred said there are already well-developed 7 editors, especially for the basic features. You 6 can restrict it to use as few, or as many 5 features, as you would like.

The difficult 4 part in developing it from scratch, is that 3 all browsers act slightly differently. The 2 following should get you moving in the right direction 1 in most browsers, other than IE:

var selected = document.getSelection();
document.execCommand("insertHTML",false,"<a href='"+href+"'>"+selected+"</a>");

EDIT It is not possible in IE in Execcommand, because 3 we cannot insert quotes in 'href', we must 2 do it in pure javascript with range :

// IN 1 DIV IN ONE IFRAME

// Get the frame
var iframe = document.getElementById('myframe');

// Selection object in the frame
theSelection = iframe.contentWindow.getSelection();

// position of the selection to insert
theRange = theSelection.getRangeAt(0);

// get content inside the original selection (and delete content in)
var fragment = theRange.extractContents();

// Create a new link in frame
var newLink = iframe.contentWindow.document.createElement('a');

// Create a text element with the fragment to put in the link
var theText = document.createTextNode(fragment.textContent);

// URL 
theLink.href = '#';

// Title
theLink.title = 'title';

// Attribute 'onclick'
theLink.setAttribute('onclick', thelink);

// Target
theLink.target = '_blank';

// Add the text in the link
theLink.appendChild(theText);

// Insert the link at the range
theRange.insertNode(newLink);

// DIV WITHOUT FRAMES

// Selection object in the window
theSelection = window.getSelection();

// begin of the selection to insert
theRange = theSelection.getRangeAt(0);

// get content inside the original selection (and delete content in)
var fragment = theRange.extractContents();

// Create a new link in the document
var newLink = document.createElement('a');

// Create a text element with the fragment to put in the link
var theText = document.createTextNode(fragment.textContent);

// URL 
theLink.href = '#';

// Title
theLink.title = 'title';

// Attribute 'onclick'
theLink.setAttribute('onclick', thelink);

// Target
theLink.target = '_blank';

// Add the text in the link
theLink.appendChild(theText);

// Insert the link at the range
theRange.insertNode(newLink);

I would do it this way:

1. Create a link with a (possibly unique) initial bogus href attribute to identify it by.
2. Fetch that element using document.querySelector('a[href=<unique-href>]').
3. You now have a reference to the created element and can do with it as you please.

The benefit of this 2 is that you don't have to work with Selection at 1 all.