Re: [Plastic-devs] highlightObject event ?

[Mark T. <m.b...@br...>]

On Thu, 4 May 2006, Pierre Fernique wrote:

> Dear Plastic developers,
> 
> The Plastic mechanism is typically interresting for cross object 
> selections. Presently, there is only one message about that 
> (showObjects) generally implemented by the selection of the 
> corresponding objects in the applications.
> 
> I would really appreciate, and I suppose that I will be not alone, if we 
> can introduce the following distinction : showObjects and HighlightObject.
> 
> It could seem a subtle difference, but in practice this difference is 
> evident.
> 
> Presently, when I select some objects in Aladin, the corresponding 
> records appear in the TOPcat table.
> But it will be great just by moving the mouse on this list (TOPcat side) 
> or on objects (Aladin side) the current line/object will be highlighted. 
> Without this highlight function, I can modify the selection and keep an 
> unique object, but in practice it is not flexible at all as you lost 
> your first selection. My example concerns Aladin and TOPcat, but it will 
> be exactly the same need for VisIVO or other tools.
> 
> Comments ?

Excellent idea.  Can't think why we haven't come up with it before now.
Unless someone thinks of a good reason why not I will try to implement 
sending and receiving of this message in TOPCAT in the next few days.
For definiteness:

   Message ID:
       ivo://votech.org/votable/highlightObject
   Arguments:
      id: String
      row: int
   Return:
      boolean (true for success)

with semantics corresponding to those for votable/showObjects.

thanks Pierre.

-- 
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b...@br... +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/