EditContext API

W3C Working Draft

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Abstract

EditContext is an API that allows authors to more directly participate in the text input process.

Status of This Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.

This document was published by the Web Editing Working Group as a Working Draft using the Recommendation track.

Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by W3C and its Members.

This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced by a group operating under the W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

This document is governed by the 03 November 2023 W3C Process Document.

1. Introduction

1.1 Background and Motivation

This section is non-normative.

Modern operating systems provide mechanisms to produce text in a variety of ways: speech-to-text, virtual keyboards, handwriting recognition and many more. When an app wants to consume text input from these various sources, it must first provide a view of its currently editable text to the operating system. The view of editable text provides a common language that apps (having a variety of different document models) and sources of text (having a variety of different input methods) can both understand. Both the apps and input sources communicate with one another by expressing their desired changes to the state of the common view as an event that the other can handle to facilitate the text input process.

For the purposes of this document, a producer of text is known as a Text Input Method. The view provided by an app which wants to consume text is called a Text Edit Context. The service provided by the OS to facilitate the editing of text in the Text Edit Context by the Text Input Methods is called a Text Input Service.

Figure 1 Many Text Input Methods using a Text Input Service to communicate with many apps through their Text Edit Contexts.

Here’s a typical flow for the text input process in more detail:

  1. A user places focus into an editable region of the app.
  2. The app produces a Text Edit Context describing its editable region according to the standards set forth by the Text Input Service and provides that Text Edit Context to the Text Input Service.
  3. The Text Input Service triggers a Text Input Method to provide some user interface for capturing text input from the user and provides the Text Input Method the app generated Text Edit Context.
  4. The Text Input Method reads the location of selection and nearby text from the Text Edit Context to help tailor its user experience.
  5. The Text Input Method may also read screen coordinates for where the selection and editable region are located so that it can properly position its user interface next to the text being edited.
  6. The user interacts with the Text Input Method user interface to input text in some Text Input Method-specific way.
  7. The Text Input Method describes its desired modifications to the text and selection in the Text Edit Context in response to the user’s input.
  8. The app handles an event describing the desired modifications to its Text Edit Context and renders the result to the user.
Figure 2 A sequence diagram illustrating a typical flow for text input.

Existing user agents handle the details of this text input process so that the author’s responsibility ends at declaring what elements of the document represent an editable region. Authors express which regions are editable using input elements, textarea elements, contenteditable elements, or by setting the designMode attribute to "on" to mark an entire document as editable.

As an editable region of the document is focused, the user agent automatically produces the Text Edit Context from the contents of the editable region and the position of the selection within it. When a Text Input Method produces text, the user agent translates the events against its Text Edit Context into a set of DOM and style modifications – only some of which are described using existing events that an author can handle.

Authors that want to produce sophisticated editing experiences may be challenged by the current approach. If, for example, the text and selection are rendered to a canvas, user agents are unable to produce a Text Edit Context to drive the text input process. Authors compensate by resorting to offscreen editable elements, but this approach comes with negative implications for accessibility, it deteriorates the input experience, and requires complex code to synchronize the position of the text in the offscreen editable element with the corresponding text in the canvas.

With the introduction of this EditContext API, authors can more directly participate in the protocol for text input and avoid the pitfalls described above.

1.2 The EditContext Model

The Text Input Service and Text Edit Context are abstractions representing the common aspects of text input across many operating systems. An EditContext is a JavaScript reflection of the Text Edit Context. When changes are made to the Text Edit Context by the Text Input Service, those changes are reflected to the author asynchronously in the form of events which are dispatched against the active EditContext. When the author makes changes to the active EditContext, those changes will be reflected in the Text Edit Context during the next lifecycle update.

1.2.1 EditContext state

Both the Text Edit Context and EditContext have a text state which holds the information exchanged in the aforementioned updates. The text state consists of:

  • text which is a DOMString representing editable content. The initial value is the empty string.
  • selection start which refers to the offset in text where the selection starts. The initial value is 0.
  • selection end which refers to the offset in text where the selection ends. The initial value is 0. selection end may be less than selection start in the case of a "backwards" selection (in reverse of document order).
  • is composing which indicates if there is an active composition. The initial value is false.
  • composition start which refers to the offset in text representing the start position of the text being actively composed. The initial value is 0.
  • composition end which refers to the offset in text representing the end position of the text being actively composed. The initial value is 0. composition end must always be greater than or equal to composition start.
  • text formats which is an array of text format. The array is initially empty.
  • control bounds is a DOMRect describing the area of the viewport in which text is displayed. It is in the client coordinate system and the initial x, y, width, and height are all 0.
  • selection bounds is a DOMRect describing the position of selection. It is in the client coordinate system and the initial x, y, width, and height are all 0.
  • codepoint rects start index which is an offset into text that respresents the position before the first codepoint whose location is reported by the first member of codepoint rects array.
  • codepoint rects is an array of DOMRect defining the bounding box of each codepoint. The array is initially empty.

text format is a struct that indicates decorative properties that should be applied to the ranges of text. The struct contains:

  • range start which is an offset into text that respresents the position before the first codepoint that should be decorated.
  • range end which is an offset into text that respresents the position after the last codepoint that should be decorated.
  • underline style, a UnderlineStyle which is the preferred underline style of the decorated text range.
  • underline thickness, a UnderlineThickness which is the preferred underline thickness of the decorated text range.
Note

Codepoint rects provides the means for the user agent to query a range of text for positioning information. The Text Input Service will use this information, in tandem with the control bounds and selection bounds, to support the Text Input Method in properly displaying its user interface. For example, the info can be used to position an IME window adjacent to text being composed. Different platforms may require different positions to be cached to fulfill queries from the Text Input Service. The user agent will indicate which positions are required by firing CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent.

Control bounds, selection bounds, and codepoint rects are given in the client coordinate system, which is defined as a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (x, y) where the origin is the top-left corner of the layout viewport, the x-axis points towards the top-right of the layout viewport, and the y-axis points towards the bottom-left of the layout viewport. The units of the client coordinate system are CSS pixels.

Note

Since EditContext bounds are defined in client coordinates, the coordinates indicating a given piece of content on a page will change as the user scrolls the document even if the content itself does not change position in the document. A scenario where authors may want to take this into account is the case where the user scrolls the page where the user has an active composition. If the author does not update the EditContext's bounds information (e.g. during a scroll event listener), the IME window may no longer line up with the text being composed for the duration of the composition.

However, some platforms do not adjust IME windows during an active composition, so updating bounds information mid-composition does not guarantee that the IME window will be repositioned until it's closed and reopened.

1.2.2 Association and activation

An EditContext has an associated element, an HTMLElement. An element becomes an EditContext's associated element by assigning the EditContext to the element's editContext property. An HTMLElement can be associated with at most one EditContext.

Note

An EditContext keeps its associated element alive, so developers should be aware that assigning an EditContext to an element's editContext property will prevent the element from being garbage collected until the property is cleared or the EditContext is garbage collected.

If an EditContext's associated element's parent is not editable and is not a Document whose designMode attribute is "on", then the associated element becomes an EditContext editing host. An EditContext editing host is a type of editing host whose behaviors are described in 1.2.3 Differences for an EditContext editing host.

Note

There are a couple implications of this. Firstly, if an element that is already an editing host due to contenteditable becomes an EditContext's associated element, then that element becomes an EditContext editing host. In other words, if both EditContext and contenteditable are set on an element, the EditContext behavior "wins".

Secondly, if an element is editable but not an editing host (i.e. it is a child in the subtree of an editing host), then becoming an EditContext's associated element has no effect on that element. This is analogous to the behavior of contenteditable, where setting contenteditable to "true" on an editable element that is not an editing host has no effect. Taken together, these rules imply that an editable tree of nodes will follow either the EditContext behavior or non-EditContext behavior, but the behaviors cannot be mixed.

A Document has an active EditContext, which may be null.

Issue 1

The following paragraph can be removed once the behavior change lands in [input-events].

When an EditContext editing host receives text input from the Text Input Service, as the default action for the beforeinput event fired as a result of that input the user agent must run Handle Input for EditContext given the EditContext editing host .

1.2.3 Differences for an EditContext editing host

In many ways, an EditContext editing host behaves in the same way as other types of editing host, e.g. for a contenteditable element. Notable similarities include:

There are also some ways that an EditContext editing host differs from other types of editing hosts:

1.2.4 EditContext events

The user agent fires several types of events against the EditContext in order to inform the author when they must update the state of the DOM in response to changes from the Text Input Service, or respond to a query from the Text Input Service. Since the timings of Text Input Services are platform-specific, authors should avoid taking dependencies on the timing of these events.

  • The user agent must fire TextUpdateEvent when the Text Input Service indicates that the user has made changes to the text, the selection, or the composition range properties of the EditContext. When the author receives this event, they must render the changes back to the page's view so the user can see what they are typing.
  • The user agent must fire TextFormatUpdateEvent when the Text Input Service indicates that certain formats should be applied to the text being composed. When the author receives this event, they must render the formatting change back to the page's view to aid the user with their IME composition.
  • The user agent must fire CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent when the Text Input Service indicates that it requires character bounds information to support the Text Input Method in properly displaying its user interface. After receiving CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent, the author must compute the requested character bounds and call updateCharacterBounds to update the character bounds in the EditContext's text state. The author should perform the updateCharacterBounds call synchronously within the CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent event handler if possible; if not, it is permissible to call it asynchronously. Upon receiving updateCharacterBounds, the user agent must pass the character bounds information on to the Text Input Service.

    Note

    The longer the author delays the updateCharacterBounds call, the higher the likelihood that the user will observe a visual stutter as the IME window repositions itself in the middle of a composition.

1.2.5 Event loop changes

A new step will be introduced as a substep within the Update the rendering step in the HTML Event Loops Processing Model, immediately following step 15 (which runs the focusing steps for Documents whose focused areas become non-focusable). The step is: For each fully active Document doc, queue a global task on the DOM manipulation task source given doc's relevant global object to run the Update the Text Edit Context steps given doc.

1.2.6 Examples

This section is non-normative.

Using an EditContext, an author can mark a region of the document editable by associating an EditContext object with an element as shown in the example below:

In the example below, the author is using a canvas to draw an editable region that allows the user to input a single line of text rendered with a monospace font. The text for the editable region is maintained by the author as a String. The text offsets for the selection in the editable region are maintained by the author as a pair of Numbers: selectionStart and selectionEnd. The Numbers refer to the count of the number of UTF-16 codepoints to the left of the start and end of the selection respectively. For the sake of communicating the bounding boxes for the current selection and the editable region of the document to Text Input Services, the author also computes the bounding rectangle in CSS pixels for the selection and the editable region of the document. The offset of the rectangle is expressed relative to the origin of the canvas element since that is the element to which the author has associated an EditContext. Since the model for the author’s representation of text and selection location matches the form expected by the EditContext API, the author can simply assign those properties to the EditContext associated with the canvas whenever those values change.

Building on the previous example, in response to user input, authors should handle the events of both the editable element (in this case a canvas) and the EditContext.

Input events against the DOM continue to describe the user’s intent

The below example shows how to handle TextUpdateEvent, TextFormatUpdateEvent, and CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent to update the model and render the result to the canvas.

1.3 Interactions with Other Editing Primitives

This section is non-normative.

An author doesn’t have to use a canvas element with an EditContext. In the example below the author uses a div to establish an editable region of the document and renders the contents into that editable region using various other styled elements, images and text. This allows the author to leverage other built-in editing primitives from the user agent such as selection and spellcheck.

2. Conformance

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

This specification defines conformance criteria that apply to a single product: the user agent that implements the interfaces that it contains.

Conformance requirements phrased as algorithms or specific steps may be implemented in any manner, so long as the end result is equivalent. (In particular, the algorithms defined in this specification are intended to be easy to follow, and not intended to be performant.)

3. EditContext API

3.1 Extensions to the HTMLElement interface

WebIDLpartial interface HTMLElement {
     attribute EditContext? editContext;
};

An HTMLElement has an internal slot [[EditContext]], which is a reference to an EditContext and is intially null.

editContext
The editContext getter steps are to return the value of this's internal [[EditContext]] slot.
The editContext setter must follow these steps:
Input
editContext
Output
None
  1. If this's local name is neither a valid shadow host name nor "canvas", then throw a "NotSupportedError" DOMException.
  2. If editContext is not null, then:
    1. If editContext's associated element is equal to this, then terminate these steps.
    2. If editContext's associated element is not null, then throw a "NotSupportedError" DOMException.
    3. Set editContext's associated element to this.
  3. Let oldEditContext be the value of this's internal [[EditContext]] slot.
  4. If oldEditContext is not null, then:
    1. Assert: oldEditContext's associated element is equal to this.
    2. Set oldEditContext's associated element to null.
  5. Set this's internal [[EditContext]] slot to be editContext.
  6. If oldEditContext is not null and oldEditContext is this's node document's active EditContext, then run the steps to deactivate an EditContext with oldEditContext.

3.1.1 Handle input for EditContext

Input
element, the HTMLElement receiving the input
Output
None
  1. Let editContext be element's node document's active EditContext
  2. If editContext is null, return.
  3. Run the steps to Update the EditContext given editContext and the Text Edit Context's text state's text, text formats, selection start, selection end, is composing, composition start, and composition end.

    Note

    Since Text Edit Context is an abstraction over the common aspects of text input across different operating systems, the determination of the values in the Text Edit Context is explicitly not given in this specification. They will vary across different operating systems and input devices.

3.1.2 EditContext-handled inputType

An inputType is an EditContext-handled inputType if it is one of the following:
  • insertText
  • insertTranspose
  • deleteWordBackward
  • deleteWordForward
  • deleteContent
  • deleteContentBackward
  • deleteContentForward
Note
The inputTypes handled by EditContext are those which operate only on raw text. Other inputTypes that depend on formats, clipboard/dragdrop, undo, or browser UI like spellcheck cannot be handled by EditContext since EditContext's state does not include these concepts. If an author wants their application to handle those inputTypes, they need to process them manually in a beforeinput event handler.

3.1.3 Update the EditContext

Input
editContext, an EditContext
text, a string
textFormats, an array of text formats from the Text Input Service
selectionStart, the new position for the start of the selection
selectionEnd, the new position for the end of the selection
isComposing, a boolean indicating whether composition should be active at the end of the update
replacementRangeStart, the start position of the current composition (0 if there is no composition)
replacementRangeEnd, the end position of the current composition (0 if there is no composition)
Output
None
  1. If isComposing is true, text is not empty, and editContext's is composing is false.
    1. Fire an event named compositionstart at editContext using CompositionEvent.
    2. set editContext's is composing to true.
  2. If text is empty:
    1. If editContext's is composing is false, return.
    2. If editContext's is composing is true and isComposing is false, then:
      1. Set editContext's is composing to false.
      2. Fire an event named compositionend at editContext using CompositionEvent.
      3. Return.
  3. If editContext's is composing is true, then:
    1. Let insertionStart be replacementRangeStart.
    2. Let insertionEnd be replacementRangeEnd.
  4. Otherwise:
    1. Let insertionStart be selectionStart.
    2. Let insertionEnd be selectionEnd.
  5. Replace the substring of editContext's text in the range of insertionStart and insertionEnd with text
  6. Set editContext's selection start to selectionStart.
  7. Set editContext's selection end to selectionEnd.
  8. Set editContext's composition start to insertionStart.
  9. Set editContext's composition end to editContext's composition start plus the length of text.
  10. Dispatch text update event given editContext and text.
  11. If editContext's is composing is true, then:
    1. Dispatch text format update event given editContext and textFormats.
    2. Dispatch character bounds update event given editContext.
    3. If isComposing is false, then:
      1. Set editContext's is composing to false.
      2. Fire an event named compositionend at editContext using CompositionEvent.

3.1.4 Update the Text Edit Context

Input
document, a Document
Output
None
  1. Let oldActiveEditContext be document's active EditContext.
  2. Let newActiveEditContext be the result of running the steps to determine the active EditContext given document.
  3. If oldActiveEditContext is not null, then run the steps to deactivate an EditContext given oldActiveEditContext.
  4. If newActiveEditContext is not null, then:
    1. Update the Text Edit Context's text state to match the values in editContext's text state.
  5. Set the document's active EditContext to newActiveEditContext.
Note

Note that the steps to update the Text Edit Context's text state are dependent on the nature of the abstraction created over a platform-specific Text Input Service. Those details are not part of this specification.

3.1.5 Dispatch text update event

Input
editContext, an EditContext
text, a string
Output
None
  1. Fire an event named "textupdate" at editContext using TextUpdateEvent, with text initialized to text, selectionStart initialized to |editContext's selection start, and selectionEnd initialized to editContext's selection end.

3.1.6 Dispatch text format update event

Input
editContext, an EditContext
textFormats, an array of text formats from the Text Input Service
Output
None
  1. Let formats be an array of TextFormat, initially empty.
  2. For each text format format in textFormats,
    1. Let textFormat be a new TextFormat. with rangeStart, rangeEnd, underlineStyle, underlineThickness.
    2. Set textFormat's rangeStart to format's range start.
    3. Set textFormat's rangeEnd to format's range end.
    4. Set textFormat's underlineStyle to format's underline style.
    5. Set textFormat's underlineThickness to format's underline thickness.
    6. Append textFormat to formats
  3. Fire an event named "textformatupdate" at editContext using TextFormatUpdateEvent with the TextFormatUpdateEvent's text format list initialized to formats.

3.1.7 Dispatch character bounds update event

Input
editContext, an EditContext
Output
None
  1. Fire an event named "characterboundsupdate" at editContext using CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent with rangeStart initialized to editContext's composition start and rangeEnd initialized to editContext's composition end.

3.1.8 Deactivate an EditContext

Input
editContext, an EditContext
Output
None
  1. Set editContext's is composing to false.
  2. Fire an event named compositionend at editContext using CompositionEvent.

3.1.9 Determine the active EditContext

Input
document, a Document
Output
An EditContext, or null.
  1. Let traversable be document's node navigable's top-level traversable.
  2. If traversable is null, return null.
  3. Let focused be the DOM anchor of the currently focused area of a top-level traversable given traversable.
  4. If focused is null or if the shadow-including root of focused is not document, return null.

    Note

    The purpose of getting focusable through the top-level traversable is that we want there to be only one active EditContext at a time per top-level traversable. So if system focus is in some other document, this document can't have an active EditContext.

  5. Let editContext be null.
  6. While focused is not null and focused is editable:
    1. Set editContext to the value of focused's internal [[EditContext]] slot.
    2. Let parent be focused's parent.
    3. If parent is null and focused's root is a shadow root, let parent be focused's root's host.
    4. Set focused to parent.
  7. Return editContext.
Note

If an EditContext's associated element's parent is editable, that EditContext can't become the active EditContext. This is the case regardless of whether that parent is editable due to another EditContext or due to contenteditable.

3.2 EditContext Interface

WebIDLdictionary EditContextInit {
    DOMString text;
    unsigned long selectionStart;
    unsigned long selectionEnd;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface EditContext : EventTarget {
    constructor(optional EditContextInit options = {});

    undefined updateText(unsigned long rangeStart, unsigned long rangeEnd,
        DOMString text);
    undefined updateSelection(unsigned long start, unsigned long end);
    undefined updateControlBounds(DOMRect controlBounds);
    undefined updateSelectionBounds(DOMRect selectionBounds);
    undefined updateCharacterBounds(unsigned long rangeStart, sequence<DOMRect> characterBounds);

    sequence<HTMLElement> attachedElements();

    readonly attribute DOMString text;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionEnd;
    readonly attribute unsigned long characterBoundsRangeStart;
    sequence<DOMRect> characterBounds();

    attribute EventHandler ontextupdate;
    attribute EventHandler ontextformatupdate;
    attribute EventHandler oncharacterboundsupdate;
    attribute EventHandler oncompositionstart;
    attribute EventHandler oncompositionend;
};
text
The text getter steps are to return this's text.
selectionStart
The selectionStart getter steps are to return this's selection start.
selectionEnd
The selectionEnd getter steps are to return this's selection end.
characterBounds
The characterBounds getter steps are to return this's codepoint rects.
characterBoundsRangeStart
The characterBoundsRangeStart getter steps are to return this's codepoint rects start index.
updateText() method

The method must follow these steps:

Input
rangeStart, an unsigned long
rangeEnd, an unsigned long
newText, a DOMString
Output
None
  1. Replace the substring of text in the range of rangeStart and rangeEnd with newText
    Note
    It's permissible that rangeStart > rangeEnd. The substring between the indices should be replaced in the same way as when rangeStart <= rangeEnd.
updateSelection() method

The method must follow these steps:

Input
start, an unsigned long
end, an unsigned long
Output
None
  1. set selection start to start
  2. set selection end to end
updateSelectionBounds() method

The method must follow these steps:

Input
selectionBounds, a DOMRect
Output
None
  1. set selection bounds to selectionBounds
updateControlBounds() method

The method must follow these steps:

Input
controlBounds, a DOMRect
Output
None
  1. set control bounds to controlBounds
updateCharacterBounds() method

The method must follow these steps:

Input
rangeStart, an unsigned long
characterBounds, an array of DOMRect
Output
None
  1. set codepoint rects start index to rangeStart.
  2. set codepoint rects to characterBounds.
attachedElements() method

The method returns a list with one item which is the the EditContext's associated element, or an empty list if the EditContext's associated element is null.

Note

This method returns a list instead of a single element for forward compatibility if EditContext is ever granted the ability to have multiple associated elements.

ontextupdate

The event handler for TextUpdateEvent.

oncharacterboundsupdate

The event handler for CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent.

ontextformatupdate

The event handler for TextFormatUpdateEvent.

oncompositionstart

The event handler for the compositionstart event.

oncompositionend

The event handler for the compositionend event.

4. EditContext Events

4.1 TextUpdateEvent

WebIDLdictionary TextUpdateEventInit : EventInit {
    unsigned long updateRangeStart;
    unsigned long updateRangeEnd;
    DOMString text;
    unsigned long selectionStart;
    unsigned long selectionEnd;
    unsigned long compositionStart;
    unsigned long compositionEnd;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface TextUpdateEvent : Event {
    constructor(DOMString type, optional TextUpdateEventInit options = {});
    readonly attribute unsigned long updateRangeStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long updateRangeEnd;
    readonly attribute DOMString text;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionEnd;
};
updateRangeStart, of type unsigned long, readonly
The start position of the range that is to be replaced.
updateRangeEnd, of type unsigned long, readonly
The end position of the range that is to be replaced.
text, of type DOMString, readonly
The new string that is to replace the old string in the range.
selectionStart, of type unsigned long, readonly
The start position of the selection after the text replacement.
selectionEnd, of type unsigned long, readonly
The end position of the selection after the text replacement.

4.2 TextFormatUpdateEvent

WebIDLenum UnderlineStyle { "none", "solid", "dotted", "dashed", "wavy" };
enum UnderlineThickness { "none", "thin", "thick" };

dictionary TextFormatInit {
    unsigned long rangeStart;
    unsigned long rangeEnd;
    UnderlineStyle underlineStyle;
    UnderlineThickness underlineThickness;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface TextFormat {
    constructor(optional TextFormatInit options = {});
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeEnd;
    readonly attribute UnderlineStyle underlineStyle;
    readonly attribute UnderlineThickness underlineThickness;
};

dictionary TextFormatUpdateEventInit : EventInit {
    sequence<TextFormat> textFormats;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface TextFormatUpdateEvent : Event {
    constructor(DOMString type, optional TextFormatUpdateEventInit options = {});
    sequence<TextFormat> getTextFormats();
};
rangeStart, of type unsigned long, readonly
An offset that respresents the position before the first codepoint that should be decorated.
rangeEnd, of type unsigned long, readonly
An offset that respresents the position after the last codepoint that should be decorated.
underlineStyle, of type UnderlineStyle, readonly
The preferred underline style of the decorated text range.
underlineThickness, of type UnderlineThickness, readonly
The preferred underline thickness of the decorated text range.
getTextFormats method
Returns this's text format list.

A TextFormatUpdateEvent has an associated text format list, a list of zero or more text formats.

4.3 CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent

WebIDLdictionary CharacterBoundsUpdateEventInit : EventInit {
    unsigned long rangeStart;
    unsigned long rangeEnd;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent : Event {
    constructor(DOMString type, optional CharacterBoundsUpdateEventInit options = {});
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeEnd;
};
rangeStart, of type unsigned long, readonly
The start position of the range where the character bounds are needed by Text Input Service
rangeEnd, of type unsigned long, readonly
The end position of the range where the character bounds are needed by Text Input Service

A. IDL Index

WebIDLpartial interface HTMLElement {
     attribute EditContext? editContext;
};

dictionary EditContextInit {
    DOMString text;
    unsigned long selectionStart;
    unsigned long selectionEnd;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface EditContext : EventTarget {
    constructor(optional EditContextInit options = {});

    undefined updateText(unsigned long rangeStart, unsigned long rangeEnd,
        DOMString text);
    undefined updateSelection(unsigned long start, unsigned long end);
    undefined updateControlBounds(DOMRect controlBounds);
    undefined updateSelectionBounds(DOMRect selectionBounds);
    undefined updateCharacterBounds(unsigned long rangeStart, sequence<DOMRect> characterBounds);

    sequence<HTMLElement> attachedElements();

    readonly attribute DOMString text;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionEnd;
    readonly attribute unsigned long characterBoundsRangeStart;
    sequence<DOMRect> characterBounds();

    attribute EventHandler ontextupdate;
    attribute EventHandler ontextformatupdate;
    attribute EventHandler oncharacterboundsupdate;
    attribute EventHandler oncompositionstart;
    attribute EventHandler oncompositionend;
};

dictionary TextUpdateEventInit : EventInit {
    unsigned long updateRangeStart;
    unsigned long updateRangeEnd;
    DOMString text;
    unsigned long selectionStart;
    unsigned long selectionEnd;
    unsigned long compositionStart;
    unsigned long compositionEnd;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface TextUpdateEvent : Event {
    constructor(DOMString type, optional TextUpdateEventInit options = {});
    readonly attribute unsigned long updateRangeStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long updateRangeEnd;
    readonly attribute DOMString text;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long selectionEnd;
};

enum UnderlineStyle { "none", "solid", "dotted", "dashed", "wavy" };
enum UnderlineThickness { "none", "thin", "thick" };

dictionary TextFormatInit {
    unsigned long rangeStart;
    unsigned long rangeEnd;
    UnderlineStyle underlineStyle;
    UnderlineThickness underlineThickness;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface TextFormat {
    constructor(optional TextFormatInit options = {});
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeEnd;
    readonly attribute UnderlineStyle underlineStyle;
    readonly attribute UnderlineThickness underlineThickness;
};

dictionary TextFormatUpdateEventInit : EventInit {
    sequence<TextFormat> textFormats;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface TextFormatUpdateEvent : Event {
    constructor(DOMString type, optional TextFormatUpdateEventInit options = {});
    sequence<TextFormat> getTextFormats();
};

dictionary CharacterBoundsUpdateEventInit : EventInit {
    unsigned long rangeStart;
    unsigned long rangeEnd;
};

[Exposed=Window]
interface CharacterBoundsUpdateEvent : Event {
    constructor(DOMString type, optional CharacterBoundsUpdateEventInit options = {});
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeStart;
    readonly attribute unsigned long rangeEnd;
};

B. Contributors

Editor's note

Add contributors

C. References

C.1 Normative references

[dom]
DOM Standard. Anne van Kesteren. WHATWG. Living Standard. URL: https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/
[geometry-1]
Geometry Interfaces Module Level 1. Simon Pieters; Chris Harrelson. W3C. 4 December 2018. W3C Candidate Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/geometry-1/
[html]
HTML Standard. Anne van Kesteren; Domenic Denicola; Dominic Farolino; Ian Hickson; Philip Jägenstedt; Simon Pieters. WHATWG. Living Standard. URL: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
[infra]
Infra Standard. Anne van Kesteren; Domenic Denicola. WHATWG. Living Standard. URL: https://infra.spec.whatwg.org/
[uievents]
UI Events. Gary Kacmarcik; Travis Leithead. W3C. 7 September 2024. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/uievents/
[webidl]
Web IDL Standard. Edgar Chen; Timothy Gu. WHATWG. Living Standard. URL: https://webidl.spec.whatwg.org/

C.2 Informative references

[input-events]
Input Events Level 1. Johannes Wilm. W3C. 28 September 2023. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/input-events-1/