Help needed with a getSelection Javascript Options

[denmarks]

I have a problem with the following Javascript which is used in a bookmarklet. I can select most text on any screen and run the bookmarklet and the text is displayed. When used to select text within an input text box it only works in Yahoo Mail. This may somehow be related to Yahoo constantly storing the text in a Drafts file. Is there a way to get it to work everywhere? For example if I highlight text as I am typing here it displays a blank. If I go to the top of the screen and select "Client-side Scripting" it displays it since it is not within this box. I need the getRangeAt portion in order to replace text in a full version of the script. NOTE: javascript gets split into java script in the code display below.

CODE

java script:inputString=document.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);alert(inputString);void(0);

[denmarks]

The more I read the more I see it is not a simple matter when extracting from a textarea. I wonder why it works in Yahoo Mail. I guess they are not using a textarea.

[Christian J]

This should work in newer browsers including IE9:

CODE

var textarea=document.getElementById('textarea');
if(textarea.selectionStart>=0)
{
    var text_before_selection=textarea.value.substring(0, textarea.selectionStart);
    var text_after_selection=textarea.value.substring(textarea.selectionEnd);
    var text_selection=textarea.value.substring(textarea.selectionStart, textarea.selectionEnd);
}

For IE8 and older other tricks are necessary.