Represents the active selection, which is a highlighted block of text or other elements in the document that a user or a script can carry out some action on.

Members Table

The following table lists the members exposed by the selection object.

Attributes/Properties

Property	Description
type	Retrieves the type of selection.
typeDetail	Retrieves the name of the selection type.

Behaviors

Behavior	Description
time2	Provides an active timeline for an HTML element or group of elements.

Collections

Collection	Description
TextRange	Retrieves a collection of TextRange objects.

Events

Event	Description
ontimeerror	Fires whenever a time-specific error occurs, usually as a result of setting a property to an invalid value.

Methods

Method	Description
clear	Clears the contents of the selection.
createRange	Creates a TextRange object from the current text selection, or a controlRange collection from a control selection.
createRangeCollection	Creates a TextRange object collection from the current selection.
empty	Cancels the current selection, sets the selection type to none, and sets the item property to null.

Prototypes

Object	Description
Selection Constructor	Defines the properties and methods inherited by objects in the Selection Constructor prototype chain.

Remarks

You can use the selection object as input from the user to identify which portion of the document to act on, or as output to the user to show the results of an action.

Users and scripts can create selections. Users create selections by dragging the mouse over a portion of the document. Scripts create selections by calling the select method on a text range or similar object. To get the active selection, apply the selection keyword to the document object. To carry out work on a selection, create a text range object from the selection using the createRange method.

A document can have only one selection at a time. The selection has a type that determines whether it is empty or contains a block of text or elements. Although an empty selection contains nothing, you can use it to mark a position in the document.

Standards Information

There is no public standard that applies to this object.

Applies To

document, HTMLDocument Constructor