setSelected

setSelected is a method commonly found in graphical user interface (GUI) toolkits and programming frameworks. Its primary purpose is to programmatically control the selection state of a UI element. Typically, this refers to elements that can be selected or deselected, such as checkboxes, radio buttons, list items, tabs, or even entire rows or cells in a table or grid.

When the setSelected method is invoked on a specific UI element, it changes that element's internal state to indicate that it has been selected. This selection often has a visual representation, such as a change in background color, the appearance of a checkmark, or a highlighted border. In addition to the visual change, the setSelected method usually triggers an event or updates a property that can be queried by other parts of the application to determine which items are currently selected.

The inverse operation, often named deselect or clearSelection, is used to remove the selection from an element. In some contexts, a method might accept a boolean parameter to either select or deselect the element in a single call, for example, setSelected(true) to select and setSelected(false) to deselect. This functionality is crucial for building interactive user interfaces where users can choose options, navigate through data, or perform actions on specific items. The precise implementation and naming of setSelected can vary slightly between different programming languages and GUI libraries, but its core function of managing selection state remains consistent.