Highlighting and Selection (Groups, Pages, Tools)

Selection is how you pick cells right now (a temporary candidate set). Highlighting is how you persist those picks as highlight groups inside highlight pages (so you can compare alternatives, drive analysis, and save/share via sessions).

This section is the “source of truth” for:

• what a highlight is (vs filters, coloring, and visibility),

• how highlight groups and highlight pages work (pages are named + colored; groups are persistent selections),

• how each selection tool behaves (especially 2D vs 3D pitfalls),

• what syncs across views/snapshots and with Python/Jupyter,

• edge cases, troubleshooting, and a verified highlighting capture.

Fast path

If you just want to “select a cluster and save it”:

1. Read Highlight mental model (5–10 min, avoids most confusion)

2. Use Selection tools (annotation, lasso, proximity, KNN) to pick the right tool (lasso vs proximity vs KNN vs annotation-based)

3. Use Highlight UI (modes, pages, groups) to understand pages/groups and what Confirm/Clear actually do

4. If something feels wrong, jump to Troubleshooting (highlighting and selection)

Every page in this section

Page	Read it when
Highlight mental model	You want to know how highlighting differs from filtering and colouring.
Selection tools (annotation, lasso, proximity, KNN)	You are choosing between lasso, proximity, KNN and annotation-based selection.
Highlight UI (modes, pages, groups)	You need the button-by-button map, including Create categorical.
Selection synchronization (views, pages, filters, Python)	You work across snapshots, or drive selection from Python/Jupyter.
Edge cases (highlighting and selection)	Something behaved surprisingly but not wrongly (3D lasso, overlapping groups, huge pages).
Troubleshooting (highlighting and selection)	Something is broken and you want symptom → fix.
Verified highlighting captures	You want to see the panel as it actually looks, with verified captures.