jQuery Text Selection method and events

jquery.textselect.js

/* jQuery plugin textselect
 * version: 1.0
 * tested on jQuery 1.3.2, 1.5
 * author: [email protected], [email protected]
 * 
 * usage:
 * $(function() {
 *		$(document).bind('textselect', function(e) {
 *			Do stuff with e.text
 *		});		 
 *	 });
 * --OR--
 * $('#textdiv').selectText();
 */
(function($) {
	// Taken from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/985272/jquery-selecting-text-in-an-element-akin-to-highlighting-with-your-mouse
	$.fn.selectText = function() {
		var obj = this[0];
		if ($.browser.msie) {
			var range = obj.offsetParent.createTextRange();
			range.moveToElementText(obj);
			range.select();
		} else if ($.browser.mozilla || $.browser.opera) {
			var selection = obj.ownerDocument.defaultView.getSelection();
			var range = obj.ownerDocument.createRange();
			range.selectNodeContents(obj);
			selection.removeAllRanges();
			selection.addRange(range);
		} else if ($.browser.safari) {
			var selection = obj.ownerDocument.defaultView.getSelection();
			selection.setBaseAndExtent(obj, 0, obj, 1);
		}
		return this;
	};
  
	$.event.special.textselect = {
		setup: function(data, namespaces) {
			$(this).data("textselected",false);
			$(this).bind('mouseup', $.event.special.textselect.handler);
		},
		teardown: function(data) {
			$(this).unbind('mouseup', $.event.special.textselect.handler);
		},
		handler: function(event) { 
			var text = $.event.special.textselect.getSelectedText().toString(); 
			if (text != '') {
				$(this).data("textselected",true);
				event.type = "textselect";
				event.text = text;
				$.event.handle.apply(this, arguments);
			}
		},
		getSelectedText: function() {
			var text = '';
				if (window.getSelection) {
				 text = window.getSelection();
				} else if (document.getSelection) {
					text = document.getSelection();
					} else if (document.selection) {
					text = document.selection.createRange().text;
				}
			return text;
		}
	};

	$.event.special.textunselect = {
		setup: function(data, namespaces) {
			$(this).data("textselected",false);
			$(this).bind('mouseup', $.event.special.textunselect.handler);
			$(this).bind('keyup', $.event.special.textunselect.handlerKey)
		},
		teardown: function(data) {
			$(this).unbind('mouseup', $.event.special.textunselect.handler);
		},
		handler: function(event) {	
			if($(this).data("textselected")) {
				var text = $.event.special.textselect.getSelectedText().toString();
				if(text=='') {
					$(this).data("textselected",false);
					event.type = "textunselect";
					$.event.handle.apply(this, arguments);
				}
			}
		},
		handlerKey: function(event) {
			if ($(this).data("textselected")) {
				var text = $.event.special.textselect.getSelectedText().toString();
				if ((event.keyCode == 27) && (text=='')) { 
					$(this).data("textselected",false);
					event.type = "textunselect";
					$.event.handle.apply(this, arguments);
				}
			}
		}
	};

})(jQuery);

Note: You will need jQuery.migrate (https://github.com/jquery/jquery-migrate/) to make it work for jQuery 1.9+.
$.browser is removed starting from 1.9+.

This piece of code can not select all text inside of a div. Say, there are several span tags in a div. The code selects only the first tag (in my case, this was the first line). Solved it already! I changed line 11. Instead of 1 in the last parameter, I computed the number of children inside the div and it worked. Please enhance the code sometime :)