[html] How do I disable text selection with CSS or JavaScript?

I am making a HTML/CSS/jQuery gallery, with several pages.

I indeed have a "next" button, which is a simple link with a jQuery click listener.

The problem is that if the user click the button several times, the text of the button is selected, and then the full line of text. In my really darky design, that is really ugly and nonsensical.

So here is my question: Can you disable text selection on HTML? If not, I'll terribly miss flash and its high level of configuration on textfields...

UPDATE January, 2017:

According to Can I use, the user-select is currently supported in all browsers except Internet Explorer 9 and earlier versions (but sadly still needs a vendor prefix).

All of the correct CSS variations are:

.noselect {_x000D_
  -webkit-touch-callout: none; /* iOS Safari */_x000D_
    -webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */_x000D_
     -khtml-user-select: none; /* Konqueror HTML */_x000D_
       -moz-user-select: none; /* Firefox */_x000D_
        -ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer/Edge */_x000D_
            user-select: none; /* Non-prefixed version, currently_x000D_
                                  supported by Chrome and Opera */_x000D_
}

<p>_x000D_
  Selectable text._x000D_
</p>_x000D_
<p class="noselect">_x000D_
  Unselectable text._x000D_
</p>

Note that it's a non-standard feature (i.e. not a part of any specification). It is not guaranteed to work everywhere, and there might be differences in implementation among browsers and in the future browsers can drop support for it.

More information can be found in Mozilla Developer Network documentation.

Try this CSS code for cross-browser compatibility.

-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;

You can use JavaScript to do what you want:

if (document.addEventListener !== undefined) {
  // Not IE
  document.addEventListener('click', checkSelection, false);
} else {
  // IE
  document.attachEvent('onclick', checkSelection);
}

function checkSelection() {
    var sel = {};
    if (window.getSelection) {
        // Mozilla
        sel = window.getSelection();
    } else if (document.selection) {
        // IE
        sel = document.selection.createRange();
    }

    // Mozilla
    if (sel.rangeCount) {
        sel.removeAllRanges();
        return;
    }

    // IE
    if (sel.text > '') {
        document.selection.empty();
        return;
    }
}

Soap box: You really shouldn't be screwing with the client's user agent in this manner. If the client wants to select things on the document, then they should be able to select things on the document. It doesn't matter if you don't like the highlight color, because you aren't the one viewing the document.

I'm not sure if you can turn it off, but you can change the colors of it :)

myDiv::selection,
myDiv::-moz-selection,
myDiv::-webkit-selection {
    background:#000;
    color:#fff;
}

Then just match the colors to your "darky" design and see what happens :)