Insert ellipsis (…) into HTML tag if content too w

Question

I have a webpage with an elastic layout that changes its width if the browser window is resized.

In this layout there are headlines (h2) that will have a variable length (actually being headlines from blogposts that I don't have control over). Currently - if they are wider than the window - they are broken into two lines.

Is there an elegant, tested (cross-browser) solution - for example with jQuery - that shortens the innerHTML of that headline tag and adds "..." if the text would be too wide to fit into one line at the current screen/container width?

Answer 1

Here is a nice widget/plugin library which has ellipsis built in: http://www.codeitbetter.co.uk/widgets/ellipsis/ All you need to do it reference the library and call the following:

<script type="text/javascript"> 
   $(document).ready(function () { 
      $(".ellipsis_10").Ellipsis({ 
         numberOfCharacters: 10, 
         showLessText: "less", 
         showMoreText: "more" 
      }); 
   }); 
</script> 
<div class="ellipsis_10"> 
   Some text here that's longer than 10 characters. 
</div>

Answer 2

There's a solution for multi-line text with pure css. It's called line-clamp, but it only works in webkit browsers. There is however a way to mimic this in all modern browsers (everything more recent than IE8.) Also, it will only work on solid backgrounds because you need a background-image to hide the last words of the last line. Here's how it goes:

Given this html:

<p class="example" id="example-1">
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing 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.
</p>

Here's the CSS:

p {
    position:relative;
    line-height:1.4em;
    height:4.2em;      /* 3 times the line-height to show 3 lines */
}
p::after {
    content:"...";
    font-weight:bold;
    position:absolute;
    bottom:0;
    right:0;
    padding:0 20px 1px 45px;
    background:url(ellipsis_bg.png) repeat-y;
}

ellipsis_bg.png being an image of the same color of your background, that would be about 100px wide and have the same height as your line-height.

It's not very pretty, as your text may be cut of in the middle of a letter, but it may be useful in some cases.

Reference: http://www.css-101.org/articles/line-clamp/line-clamp_for_non_webkit-based_browsers.php

Answer 3

There is a simple jQuery solution by Devon Govett:

https://gist.github.com/digulla/5796047

To use, just call ellipsis() on a jQuery object. For example:

$("span").ellipsis();

Answer 4

The following CSS only solution for truncating text on a single line works with all browers listed at http://www.caniuse.com as of writing with the exception of Firefox 6.0. Note that JavaScript is totally unnecessary unless you need to support wrapping multiline text or earlier versions of Firefox.

.ellipsis {
    white-space: nowrap;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
    -o-text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

If you need support for earlier versions of Firefox check out my answer on this other question.

Answer 5

This is similar to Alex's but does it in log time instead of linear, and takes a maxHeight parameter.

jQuery.fn.ellipsis = function(text, maxHeight) {
  var element = $(this);
  var characters = text.length;
  var step = text.length / 2;
  var newText = text;
  while (step > 0) {
    element.html(newText);
    if (element.outerHeight() <= maxHeight) {
      if (text.length == newText.length) {
        step = 0;
      } else {
        characters += step;
        newText = text.substring(0, characters);
      }
    } else {
      characters -= step;
      newText = newText.substring(0, characters);
    }
    step = parseInt(step / 2);
  }
  if (text.length > newText.length) {
    element.html(newText + "...");
    while (element.outerHeight() > maxHeight && newText.length >= 1) {
      newText = newText.substring(0, newText.length - 1);
      element.html(newText + "...");
    }
  }
};

Answer 6

I built this code using a number of other posts, with the following enhancements:

1. It uses a binary search to find the text length that is just right.
2. It handles cases where the ellipsis element(s) are initially hidden by setting up a one-shot show event that re-runs the ellipsis code when the item is first displayed. This is handy for master-detail views or tree-views where some items aren't initially displayed.
3. It optionally adds a title attribute with the original text for a hoverover effect.
4. Added display: block to the style, so spans work
5. It uses the ellipsis character instead of 3 periods.
6. It auto-runs the script for anything with the .ellipsis class

CSS:

.ellipsis {
        white-space: nowrap;
        overflow: hidden;
        display: block;
}

.ellipsis.multiline {
        white-space: normal;
}

jquery.ellipsis.js

(function ($) {

    // this is a binary search that operates via a function
    // func should return < 0 if it should search smaller values
    // func should return > 0 if it should search larger values
    // func should return = 0 if the exact value is found
    // Note: this function handles multiple matches and will return the last match
    // this returns -1 if no match is found
    function binarySearch(length, func) {
        var low = 0;
        var high = length - 1;
        var best = -1;
        var mid;

        while (low <= high) {
            mid = ~ ~((low + high) / 2); //~~ is a fast way to convert something to an int
            var result = func(mid);
            if (result < 0) {
                high = mid - 1;
            } else if (result > 0) {
                low = mid + 1;
            } else {
                best = mid;
                low = mid + 1;
            }
        }

        return best;
    }

    // setup handlers for events for show/hide
    $.each(["show", "toggleClass", "addClass", "removeClass"], function () {

        //get the old function, e.g. $.fn.show   or $.fn.hide
        var oldFn = $.fn[this];
        $.fn[this] = function () {

            // get the items that are currently hidden
            var hidden = this.find(":hidden").add(this.filter(":hidden"));

            // run the original function
            var result = oldFn.apply(this, arguments);

            // for all of the hidden elements that are now visible
            hidden.filter(":visible").each(function () {
                // trigger the show msg
                $(this).triggerHandler("show");
            });

            return result;
        };
    });

    // create the ellipsis function
    // when addTooltip = true, add a title attribute with the original text
    $.fn.ellipsis = function (addTooltip) {

        return this.each(function () {
            var el = $(this);

            if (el.is(":visible")) {

                if (el.css("overflow") === "hidden") {
                    var content = el.html();
                    var multiline = el.hasClass('multiline');
                    var tempElement = $(this.cloneNode(true))
                        .hide()
                        .css('position', 'absolute')
                        .css('overflow', 'visible')
                        .width(multiline ? el.width() : 'auto')
                        .height(multiline ? 'auto' : el.height())
                    ;

                    el.after(tempElement);

                    var tooTallFunc = function () {
                        return tempElement.height() > el.height();
                    };

                    var tooWideFunc = function () {
                        return tempElement.width() > el.width();
                    };

                    var tooLongFunc = multiline ? tooTallFunc : tooWideFunc;

                    // if the element is too long...
                    if (tooLongFunc()) {

                        var tooltipText = null;
                        // if a tooltip was requested...
                        if (addTooltip) {
                            // trim leading/trailing whitespace
                            // and consolidate internal whitespace to a single space
                            tooltipText = $.trim(el.text()).replace(/\s\s+/g, ' ');
                        }

                        var originalContent = content;

                        var createContentFunc = function (i) {
                            content = originalContent.substr(0, i);
                            tempElement.html(content + "…");
                        };

                        var searchFunc = function (i) {
                            createContentFunc(i);
                            if (tooLongFunc()) {
                                return -1;
                            }
                            return 0;
                        };

                        var len = binarySearch(content.length - 1, searchFunc);

                        createContentFunc(len);

                        el.html(tempElement.html());

                        // add the tooltip if appropriate
                        if (tooltipText !== null) {
                            el.attr('title', tooltipText);
                        }
                    }

                    tempElement.remove();
                }
            }
            else {
                // if this isn't visible, then hook up the show event
                el.one('show', function () {
                    $(this).ellipsis(addTooltip);
                });
            }
        });
    };

    // ellipsification for items with an ellipsis
    $(document).ready(function () {
        $('.ellipsis').ellipsis(true);
    });

} (jQuery));