Programmatic Selection With The Selectable Widget

The jQuery UI selectable is less a widget than a utility. Technically, it's a widget in that you apply it to elements the same as you would a standard widget — like tabs or progressbar. Really, selectable is more like the other interaction widgets found in jQuery UI — sortable and resizable, for example. Interactions are designed as utilities, used to help out the larger, more fleshed out widgets. Take the dialog, it relies on both the position and the resizable utilities. So who does selectable help out? Anything we do, really, that requires a selection. The trouble is with filling in some fundamental gaps. Like programmatically-selecting items.