Chrome Extension: how to capture selected text and send to a web service
- by phil swenson
For the Google Chrome extension, I need to capture selected text in a web page and send to a web service. I'm stuck!
First I tried a bookmarklet, but Chrome on Mac seems to have some bookmarklet bugs so I decided to write an extension.
I use this code in my ext:
function getSelText(){
var txt = 'nothing';
if (window.getSelection){
txt = "1" + window.getSelection();
} else if (document.getSelection) {
txt = "2" + document.getSelection();
} else if (document.selection) {
txt = "3" + document.selection.createRange().text;
} else txt = "wtf";
return txt;
}
var selection = getSelText();
alert("selection = " + selection);
When I click on my extension icon, I get a "1". So I think the act of selecting outside the browser window is causing the text to not be seen by the browser as "selected" any more.
Just a theory....
thoughts?
