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October 21, 2001 Detecting a Selection  Tips: October 2001
Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
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Although Netscape Navigator 4.x and Netscape 6 cannot retrieve the text of a selection within a text or textarea field, they can respond to one. Both Netscape browsers feature the onselect event handler that executes JavaScript code when the user selects some of the text within a form's field. This event handler cannot be used for other elements on the page. Try entering text in the field below and then select a portion of it with a mouse movement:
Here is how the form above is defined:
onselect event handler is also supported by Internet Explorer as an event handler of text and textarea fields. This event does not bubble like most other events in Internet Explorer. Events that do not bubble can only be handled on the individual object that fired the event, so you cannot capture select events at the document level. Try the above selection exercise in both Netscape 6 (or Navigator 4.x) and Internet Explorer. You can observe a noticeable difference. Netscape 6 (as well as Navigator 4.x) reacts to the event's completion, when the mouse button is being released. Internet Explorer, though, reacts to the event's initiation, when the mouse button is being pressed.
See Column 10 (The Internet Explorer Event Model) for a complete discussion of the Internet Explorer event
model, and Column 11 (The Cross Browser Event Model) for the cross-browser event model.
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