Issue with selecting text using keys jquery

Question

I need to highlight the selected text in a div using keys and mouse. Approach for select using mouse is as follows:

html code:

 <div id="passage_response" contenteditable="true">
       <span class="word" num="0"> In </span>
       <span class="word" num="1"> this </span>
       <span class="word" num="2"> bug, </span>
       <span class="word" num="3"> issue </span>
       <span class="word" num="4"> no </span>
       <span class="word" num="5"> 1 </span>
       <span class="word" num="6"> explains </span>
    </div>

jquery:

    $('#passage_response .word').bind('dblclick', function() {
        toggleHighlight(this);
    });
    function toggleHighlight(target) {
        //highlighting functionality here
    }

This is working fine for mouse double click. But for using keys this not working as expected. Because I need to make this functionality accessible to visually impaired people. I tried with keypress and keydown to select the text using keys. But with the .word class it is not returning the object "this". Please someone suggest a solution for this. Thank you

Answer 1

Why not just toggle a class on dblclick ?

I also added a handler for left & right arrow keys combined with the shift key.

It checks e.keyCode for the left & right arrow values 37 or 39.

Then it checks e.shiftKey to see if shift is pressed.

$('#passage_response .word').on('dblclick', function() {
  $('.word').removeClass('highlight');
  $(this).addClass('highlight');
});

$(document).on('keyup',function(e){
  e = e || window.event;
  switch(e.keyCode){
    case 37: //LEFT ARROW
      if($('.word.highlight').length){
        if(e.shiftKey){ //SHIFT + LEFT
          $('.word.highlight').last().removeClass('highlight');
        }else{ //LEFT ONLY
          $('.word.highlight').removeClass('highlight').prev('.word').addClass('highlight');
        }
      }else{
        $('.word').eq(0).addClass('highlight');
      }
      break;
    case 39: //RIGHT ARROW
      if($('.word.highlight').length){
        if(e.shiftKey){ //RIGHT + SHIFT
          $('.word.highlight').last().next('.word').addClass('highlight');
        }else{ //RIGHT ONLY
          $('.word.highlight').removeClass('highlight').next('.word').addClass('highlight');
        }
      }else{
        $('.word').eq(0).addClass('highlight');
      }
      break;
  }
});

.highlight{
  font-weight: bold;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="passage_response" contenteditable="true">
  <span class="word" num="0"> In </span>
  <span class="word" num="1"> this </span>
  <span class="word" num="2"> bug, </span>
  <span class="word" num="3"> issue </span>
  <span class="word" num="4"> no </span>
  <span class="word" num="5"> 1 </span>
  <span class="word" num="6"> explains </span>
</div>

Answer 2

$('#passage_response .word').bind('dblclick', function() {
       $(this).css({"color":"blue"});
});

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="passage_response" contenteditable="true">
       <span class="word" num="0"> In </span>
       <span class="word" num="1"> this </span>
       <span class="word" num="2"> bug, </span>
       <span class="word" num="3"> issue </span>
       <span class="word" num="4"> no </span>
       <span class="word" num="5"> 1 </span>
       <span class="word" num="6"> explains </span>
    </div>