Javascript Disable Text Selection
Tutorial by James of
Bandit.co.nz™
Copyright James Nisbet 2005 ~ 2007
20th December 2005
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NOTE: I'VE RELEASED AN UPDATE TO THIS SCRIPT HERE:
http://lab.bandit.co.nz/scripts/disableselect/
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In the following tutorial I will explain how to disable the selection of text on a page.
It's very simple - you use two of the built in JavaScript events to cancel the selection before it starts. The following code disables selections globally over the entire document.
window.onload = function() {
document.onselectstart = function () { return false; } // ie
document.onmousedown = function () { return false; } // mozilla
}
Note that you can attach the events to any element - in the following example I'll disable selecting text in an element with the id '
content'.
window.onload = function() {
var element = document.getElementById('content');
element.onselectstart = function () { return false; } // ie
element.onmousedown = function () { return false; } // mozilla
}
Note that I'm calling the code after the page has loaded - this makes sure that the element is fully loaded before trying to do anything with it.
Have fun. If you have any issues, please
drop me a line.
If you liked this tutorial please
tell a friend.