Get contentEditable caret position

I’m finding tons of good, cross-browser answers on how to set the caret position in a contentEditable element, but none on how to get the caret position in the first place.

What I want to do is know the caret position within a div on keyup. So, when the user is typing text, I can, at any point, know the caret position within the contentEditable element.

<div id="contentBox" contentEditable="true"></div>

$('#contentbox').keyup(function() { 
    // ... ? 
});

Answer

The following code assumes:

• There is always a single text node within the editable <div> and no other nodes
• The editable div does not have the CSS white-space property set to pre

If you need a more general approach that will work content with nested elements, try this answer:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/4812022/96100

Code:

function getCaretPosition(editableDiv) {
  var caretPos = 0,
    sel, range;
  if (window.getSelection) {
    sel = window.getSelection();
    if (sel.rangeCount) {
      range = sel.getRangeAt(0);
      if (range.commonAncestorContainer.parentNode == editableDiv) {
        caretPos = range.endOffset;
      }
    }
  } else if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange) {
    range = document.selection.createRange();
    if (range.parentElement() == editableDiv) {
      var tempEl = document.createElement("span");
      editableDiv.insertBefore(tempEl, editableDiv.firstChild);
      var tempRange = range.duplicate();
      tempRange.moveToElementText(tempEl);
      tempRange.setEndPoint("EndToEnd", range);
      caretPos = tempRange.text.length;
    }
  }
  return caretPos;
}

#caretposition {
  font-weight: bold;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="contentbox" contenteditable="true">Click me and move cursor with keys or mouse</div>
<div id="caretposition">0</div>
<script>
  var update = function() {
    $('#caretposition').html(getCaretPosition(this));
  };
  $('#contentbox').on("mousedown mouseup keydown keyup", update);
</script>