function hidem(object)

%HIDEM  Hides identified graphics objects
%
%  HIDEM('str') hides the object on the current axes specified
%  by the string 'str', where 'str' is any string recognized by HANDLEM.
%  Hiding an object is accomplished by setting its visible property to off.
%
%  HIDEM will display a Graphical User Interface prompting for the
%  objects to be hid from the current axes.
%
%  HIDEM(h) hides the objects specified by the input handles h.
%
%  See also CLMO, SHOWM, HANDLEM, NAMEM, TAGM

%  Copyright 1996-1998 by Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. and The MathWorks, Inc.
% $Revision: 1.6 $
%  Written by:  E. Byrns, E. Brown



if nargin == 0;   object = 'taglist';   end

%  Get the appropriate object handles

% special treatment for scaleruler because of hidden handle elements
msg = [];
if isstr(object) &  strmatch('scaleruler',object,'exact') % strip trailing numbers
		hndl = [];
		for i=1:20 % don't expect more than 20 distinct scalerulers
			tagstr = ['scaleruler' num2str(i)];
			hexists = findall(gca,'tag',tagstr,'HandleVisibility','on');
			if ~isempty(hexists); hndl = [hndl hexists]; end
		end
		for i=1:length(hndl)
			s = get(hndl(i),'Userdata'); % Get the properties structure
			childtag = s.Children; % Handles of all elements of scale ruler
			hchild = findall(gca,'tag',childtag);
			set(hchild,'Visible','off');
		end
		return
elseif isstr(object) &  strmatch('scaleruler',object) % strip trailing numbers
		hndl = findall(gca,'tag',object);
else
	[hndl,msg] = handlem(object);
end

if ~isempty(msg);  error(msg);  end

%  Hide the identified graphics objects

set(hndl,'Visible','off')
