[patch][cla] visibility API needed to hide/show GFX shape or group

[liyang]

There is currently no API to hide/show a GFX shape or group. All you can do is remove the shape from its parent using shape.removeShape() or parent.remove(shape), but there is no API like shape.setVisible(true/false)/shape.isVisible().

Removing a shape to hide it can be an acceptable workaround in some cases, but has the following cons:

• The shape is no more accessible in the child list of its parent, so this forces the caller to keep a reference to

the hidden shape in some way, which can complicate the code a lot.

• Shapes removed from their parent seem poorly supported and exhibit a number of problems, depending on the renderer:

for example, calling setFill() on an orphan shape fails (at least on the SVG renderer) because the GFX code tries to walk up the parent chain to the Surface; on VML, removed shapes seem to loose some of their properties (fill, stroke, ...); etc

So, all in all, a visibility API on shapes would be really useful.

[liyang]

How about add two API to shape:

setVisible: function(/*Boolean*/show) isVisible: function() /* return boolean */

I'm working on the impl.

[Chris Mitchell]

IBM#145312

[Eugene Lazutkin]

The attached patch doesn't work with Canvas nor Silverlight renderers, which are not based on DOM nodes. As such it is a no-go.

[dylan]

Given that no one has shown interest in creating a patch in the past 5+ years, I'm closing this as patchwelcome.