Disable Text Selection

Description

This WordPress plugin controls text selection on your website by allowing users to select text only within specific HTML elements, effectively protecting your content. By preventing unauthorized copying, you can maintain the integrity of your work. Additionally, this plugin helps prevent content copying through browser extensions or by disabling JavaScript, further enhancing your content protection strategy. Administrators retain full text selection capabilities, ensuring that the functionality of your site remains intact. With a focus on enhancing user experience, this tool effectively protects your intellectual property without compromising accessibility.

Features

  • Allowed Elements:

    • <form>
    • <input>
    • <textarea>
    • <pre>
    • <code>
  • Selection Control:

    • Text selection is disabled on normal paragraphs to prevent unauthorized copying of your content.
    • If selected text exceeds ten characters in allowed areas, it will be cleared.
  • Full Text Selection:

    • The CTRL + A (or Command + A on Mac) shortcut is allowed within input fields and text areas.
  • Shift-Drag Support:

    • Users can select text by clicking and dragging within allowed elements while holding the Shift key.

Usage

Once activated, the plugin will manage text selection according to the specified rules, enhancing user interaction while preventing the unauthorized copying of your content.

Support

For any questions or support requests, please open an issue in the plugin’s repository or contact the plugin author.

Installation

  1. Upload the plugin files to the /wp-content/plugins/disable-text-selection directory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly.
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress.
  3. The plugin will automatically start controlling text selection on your site.

FAQ

How to Test if This Plugin is Working

After activating the plugin, please follow these steps to ensure it functions correctly:

  1. Clear Your Cache: It is essential to clear your page cache to reflect the changes made by the plugin.

  2. Use Incognito Mode: Open your site in Incognito mode, or use a non-administrator, non-editor account to simulate the experience of a regular visitor.

  3. Check Functionality:

    • Visit your website and try selecting text from a paragraph. You should find that text selection is disabled as intended.
    • Additionally, disable JavaScript in your browser settings and refresh the page. You should see a prompt requesting you to enable JavaScript to access the site.

By following these steps, you can effectively verify that the plugin is working as designed.

Does it prevent bypassing protection in noscript mode

By default, yes. Every modern browser comes with JavaScript enabled, and there is generally no compelling reason for users to disable it. However, if a user chooses to disable JavaScript to bypass content protection, this plugin strictly enforces the requirement to enable JavaScript first to deliver its protective features. If you wish to disable this strict mode, you can do so using the following filter and clear the page cache to reflect the changes, though I do not recommend this approach:

add_filter( 'disable_text_selection_noscript', '__return_false' );

Protecting against text selection is a complex challenge, and significant efforts have been made to ensure this plugin works effectively in most scenarios.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“Disable Text Selection” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

1.0.0

  • Initial release