JAL-2507 Annotation.EMPTY_ANNOTATION - non-null whitespace annotation

diff --git a/src/jalview/datamodel/Annotation.java b/src/jalview/datamodel/Annotation.java
index 71ebbb3..fc8688c 100755 (executable)
--- a/src/jalview/datamodel/Annotation.java
+++ b/src/jalview/datamodel/Annotation.java
@@ -30,6 +30,12 @@ import java.awt.Color;
  */
 public class Annotation
 {
+  /**
+   * the empty annotation - proxy for null entries in annotation row
+   */
+  public static final Annotation EMPTY_ANNOTATION = new Annotation("", "",
+          ' ', 0f);
+
   /** Character label - also shown below histogram */
   public String displayCharacter = "";