Selection

selection primitive.

Stage	Category	Version	Last Updated	Demo
3	Inputs	1.0.0-next.2 (next)	Aug 12, 2026	Demo →

npm i @solid-primitives/selection@next

Primitive that helps reactively reading/setting cursor position and selections both in text fields and contenteditable elements.

Requires: solid-js@^2.0.0-beta.10 and @solidjs/web@^2.0.0-beta.10

Usage

The format of the getter output and setter input is HTMLSelection, consisting of a tuple of the node in which the selection happens and a start and end offset within the text content. The offsets count from zero, so 1 would be the second character.

import { createSelection } from "@solid-primitives/selection";

const [selection, setSelection] = createSelection();

// nothing is selected:
selection(); // [null, NaN, NaN]

// select the second to fourth letter inside a contentEditable div:
setSelection([document.querySelector("div[contenteditable]"), 1, 3]);
selection(); // [HTMLDivElement, 1, 3]

// change the selection to a cursor behind the fourth letter inside the first input:
setSelection([document.querySelector("input"), 3, 3]);
selection(); // [HTMLInputElement, 3, 3]

// remove the selection again:
setSelection([null, NaN, NaN]);

Gets and sets the selection. Handles input, textarea, contentEditable elements and plain text. Use it to manipulate or keep the cursor / selection when overwriting values or innerHTML. In order to use it with an input mask to apply it to a contentEditable element, you can use:

import { createSelection } from "@solid-primitives/selection";
import { anyMaskToFn } from "@solid-primitives/input-mask";

const [selection, setSelection] = createSelection();

const ibanMask = anyMaskToFn("aa99999999999999999999");

const inputMaskHandler = ev => {
  const [node, start, end] = selection();
  if (ev.currentTarget === node) {
    const [value, selection] = ibanMask(node.innerHTML, [start, end]);
    node.innerHTML = value;
    setSelection([node, selection[0], selection[1]]);
  }
};

return <div contenteditable onInput={inputMaskHandler}></div>;

For more information about input-mask, see its README.md.

By-product: getTextNodes

Since we need it for the selection inside contentEditable elements, there is a function called getTextNodes that will return all text nodes inside the given DOM node in their actual order, even if encapsulated by other elements:

import { getTextNodes } from "@solid-primitives/select";

getTextNodes(div); // [Text, Text, Text]

At some point, this might move into the utils package if used by other primitives, but in this case, it will be re-exported not to break compatibility.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md