How do I disable text selection with CSS or JavaScript?
HtmlCssCross BrowserTextselectionHtml Problem Overview
I am making a HTML/CSS/jQuery gallery, with several pages.
I indeed have a "next" button, which is a simple link with a jQuery click listener.
The problem is that if the user click the button several times, the text of the button is selected, and then the full line of text. In my really darky design, that is really ugly and nonsensical.
So here is my question: Can you disable text selection on HTML? If not, I'll terribly miss flash and its high level of configuration on textfields...
Html Solutions
Solution 1 - Html
<div
style="-moz-user-select: none; -webkit-user-select: none; -ms-user-select:none; user-select:none;-o-user-select:none;"
unselectable="on"
onselectstart="return false;"
onmousedown="return false;">
Blabla
</div>
Solution 2 - Html
UPDATE January, 2017:
According to Can I use, the user-select
is currently supported in all browsers except Internet Explorer 9 and earlier versions (but sadly still needs a vendor prefix).
All of the correct CSS variations are:
.noselect {
-webkit-touch-callout: none; /* iOS Safari */
-webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
-khtml-user-select: none; /* Konqueror HTML */
-moz-user-select: none; /* Firefox */
-ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer/Edge */
user-select: none; /* Non-prefixed version, currently
supported by Chrome and Opera */
}
<p>
Selectable text.
</p>
<p class="noselect">
Unselectable text.
</p>
Note that it's a non-standard feature (i.e. not a part of any specification). It is not guaranteed to work everywhere, and there might be differences in implementation among browsers and in the future browsers can drop support for it.
More information can be found in Mozilla Developer Network documentation.
Solution 3 - Html
Try this CSS code for cross-browser compatibility.
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
Solution 4 - Html
You can use JavaScript to do what you want:
if (document.addEventListener !== undefined) {
// Not IE
document.addEventListener('click', checkSelection, false);
} else {
// IE
document.attachEvent('onclick', checkSelection);
}
function checkSelection() {
var sel = {};
if (window.getSelection) {
// Mozilla
sel = window.getSelection();
} else if (document.selection) {
// IE
sel = document.selection.createRange();
}
// Mozilla
if (sel.rangeCount) {
sel.removeAllRanges();
return;
}
// IE
if (sel.text > '') {
document.selection.empty();
return;
}
}
Soap box: You really shouldn't be screwing with the client's user agent in this manner. If the client wants to select things on the document, then they should be able to select things on the document. It doesn't matter if you don't like the highlight color, because you aren't the one viewing the document.
Solution 5 - Html
I'm not sure if you can turn it off, but you can change the colors of it :)
myDiv::selection,
myDiv::-moz-selection,
myDiv::-webkit-selection {
background:#000;
color:#fff;
}
Then just match the colors to your "darky" design and see what happens :)