Action Statement

Turn highlighting on or off.

highlight {[color] COLOR|off}

color COLOR

A string value, integer value, or color keyword representing an ESL color.

off

Turn highlighting off; this is the default.

Description

Use this statement to turn highlighting on or off. When highlighting is on, a correct selection of an object causes a frame to be displayed around the object for a moment.

The highlight statement is typically specified in a response to start response definition.

The highlight frame is always drawn in complement mode--the inverse of the background color--to ensure that the frame will always be visible. The specified color of the frame will be displayed in that color when the frame is against a black background, but when it is moved to another color background, it will change color as necessary.

White is the most useful color for the highlight in windowed applications; when inverted, it will always be more visible than any other specified color. For example, it will be white against a black background, black against a white background, green against a magenta background, and so on. Note that a black frame is not useful, since inverted black is not visible against any background color.

Color 25 is the most useful color for highlight in fullscreen applications.

You can change the amount of time the highlight appears by setting the value of the HLDELAY command in the EslConfig.ini file. Initially, the value of HLDELAY is 8000; a value between 0 and 64,000 can be specified. The larger the value, the longer the highlight will flash.

Example

 

response to start

 highlight white

 

response to Undo

 highlight off