jQuery Set Cursor Position in Text Area

Here's a jQuery solution:

$.fn.selectRange = function(start, end) {
    if(end === undefined) {
        end = start;
    }
    return this.each(function() {
        if('selectionStart' in this) {
            this.selectionStart = start;
            this.selectionEnd = end;
        } else if(this.setSelectionRange) {
            this.setSelectionRange(start, end);
        } else if(this.createTextRange) {
            var range = this.createTextRange();
            range.collapse(true);
            range.moveEnd('character', end);
            range.moveStart('character', start);
            range.select();
        }
    });
};

With this, you can do

$('#elem').selectRange(3,5); // select a range of text
$('#elem').selectRange(3); // set cursor position

• JsFiddle
• JsBin

I have two functions:

function setSelectionRange(input, selectionStart, selectionEnd) {
  if (input.setSelectionRange) {
    input.focus();
    input.setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd);
  }
  else if (input.createTextRange) {
    var range = input.createTextRange();
    range.collapse(true);
    range.moveEnd('character', selectionEnd);
    range.moveStart('character', selectionStart);
    range.select();
  }
}

function setCaretToPos (input, pos) {
  setSelectionRange(input, pos, pos);
}

Then you can use setCaretToPos like this:

setCaretToPos(document.getElementById("YOURINPUT"), 4);

Live example with both a textarea and an input, showing use from jQuery:

function setSelectionRange(input, selectionStart, selectionEnd) {
  if (input.setSelectionRange) {
    input.focus();
    input.setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd);
  } else if (input.createTextRange) {
    var range = input.createTextRange();
    range.collapse(true);
    range.moveEnd('character', selectionEnd);
    range.moveStart('character', selectionStart);
    range.select();
  }
}

function setCaretToPos(input, pos) {
  setSelectionRange(input, pos, pos);
}

$("#set-textarea").click(function() {
  setCaretToPos($("#the-textarea")[0], 10)
});
$("#set-input").click(function() {
  setCaretToPos($("#the-input")[0], 10);
});

<textarea id="the-textarea" cols="40" rows="4">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</textarea>
<br><input type="button" id="set-textarea" value="Set in textarea">
<br><input id="the-input" type="text" size="40" value="Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit">
<br><input type="button" id="set-input" value="Set in input">
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

As of 2016, tested and working on Chrome, Firefox, IE11, even IE8 (see that last here; Stack Snippets don't support IE8).

The solutions here are right except for the jQuery extension code.

The extension function should iterate over each selected element and return this to support chaining. Here is the a correct version:

$.fn.setCursorPosition = function(pos) {
  this.each(function(index, elem) {
    if (elem.setSelectionRange) {
      elem.setSelectionRange(pos, pos);
    } else if (elem.createTextRange) {
      var range = elem.createTextRange();
      range.collapse(true);
      range.moveEnd('character', pos);
      range.moveStart('character', pos);
      range.select();
    }
  });
  return this;
};