Scroll to Element within CKEditor

By  on  

CKEditor is the outstanding WYSIWYG editor we use on the Mozilla Developer Network.  We have many custom plugins and we do everything we can to make writing easy for contributors.  One trick I just picked up was skipping to an element within the editor by ID and setting the cursor focus within that element.  Here's how!

The JavaScript

You'll start by scrolling the element into view within CKEditor:

var element = editor.document.getById('someHeading');
var range;

if(element) {
    element.scrollIntoView();

    // Thank you S/O
    // http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16835365/set-cursor-to-specific-position-in-ckeditor
    range = editor.createRange();
    range.moveToPosition(element, CKEDITOR.POSITION_AFTER_START);
    editor.getSelection().selectRanges([range]);
}

With the element in view, you'll attempt to insert the cursor at the beginning of the element using a Range.

Firefox will actually insert the cursor for you but Chrome wont, so the Range step is necessary.

Recent Features

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Table Cell and Position Absolute

    If you follow me on Twitter, you saw me rage about trying to make position: absolute work within a TD element or display: table-cell element.  Chrome?  Check.  Internet Explorer?  Check.  Firefox?  Ugh, FML.  I tinkered in the console...and cussed.  I did some researched...and I...

  • By
    Form Element AJAX Spinner Attachment Using MooTools

    Many times you'll see a form dynamically change available values based on the value of a form field. For example, a "State" field will change based on which Country a user selects. What annoys me about these forms is that they'll often do an...

Discussion

  1. Instead of

    range.setStart(element, 0);
    range.setEnd(element, 0);
    

    you can simply use

    range.moveToPosition( element, CKEDITOR.POSITION_AFTER_START );
    
  2. Ahmad Raza Cheema

    This will work for sure.

    CKeditor.config.startupFocus = 'end';

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!