I try to get the DOM I select by ContextMenu in Chrome Extension.

Code:

chrome.contextMenus.onClicked.addListener(function(info, tab){
  // the info.selectionText just the text, don not contains html.
});

chrome.contextMenus.create({
  title: "Demo",
  contexts: ["selection"],
  id: "demo"
});

but the info.selectionText don't contains the HTML DOM. Is there any way to get the selection dom in Chrome extension contextMenu?. Please suggest. thanks.

I try to get the DOM I select by ContextMenu in Chrome Extension.

Code:

chrome.contextMenus.onClicked.addListener(function(info, tab){
  // the info.selectionText just the text, don not contains html.
});

chrome.contextMenus.create({
  title: "Demo",
  contexts: ["selection"],
  id: "demo"
});

but the info.selectionText don't contains the HTML DOM. Is there any way to get the selection dom in Chrome extension contextMenu?. Please suggest. thanks.

• javascript
• google-chrome
• google-chrome-extension

• Possible duplicate of Get page selection including HTML? – Zach Saucier Commented Oct 17, 2016 at 12:34

3 Answers 3

To access the selection, you will need to inject a content script into the page.

There, you can call getSelection() to get a Selection object and play with ranges in it to extract the DOM you need.

// "activeTab" permission is sufficient for this:
chrome.contextMenus.onClicked.addListener(function(info, tab){
  chrome.tabs.executeScript(tab.id, {file: "getDOM.js"})
});

getDOM.js:

var selection = document.getSelection();
// extract the information you need
// if needed, return it to the main script with messaging

You may want to take a look at Messaging docs.

If you want just selected text from context menu than you can do it by following code

function getClickHandler() {
    return function(info, tab) {
      // info.selectionText contain selected text when right clicking
      console.log(info.selectionText);
    };
  };


/**
 * Create a context menu which will only when text is selected.
 */
chrome.contextMenus.create({
  "title" : "Get Text!",
  "type" : "normal",
  "contexts" : ["selection"],
  "onclick" : getClickHandler()
});

How I solved it in v3 manifest:

chrome.contextMenus.onClicked.addListener(async (info, tab) => {
  const tabId = tab?.id;

  if (tabId && info.menuItemId === 'my menu item' && info.selectionText) {
    chrome.scripting.executeScript(
      {
        func: () => {
          const selection = window.getSelection();
          const range = selection?.getRangeAt(0);
          if (range) {
            const clonedSelection = range.cloneContents();
            const div = document.createElement('div');
            div.appendChild(clonedSelection);
            return div.innerHTML;
          }
        },
        target: {
          tabId,
        },
      },
      (result) => {
        const html = result[0].result;
        // do something with `html`
      },
    );
  }
});

This requires both scripting and activeTab permissions.