I figured out the answer. The main problem is D3 does not have an explicit trigger
function as jQuery does. However, you can simulate it.
Say you have a D3 path built via
d3.json("us-counties.json", function(json){
thisObj._svg.selectAll("path")
.data(json.features)
.enter().append("path")
.attr("d", thisObj._path)
.attr("class", "states")
.attr("id", function(d){
return d.id; //<-- Sets the ID of this county to the path
})
.style("fill", "gray")
.style("stroke", "black")
.style("stroke-width", "0.5px")
.on("dblclick", mapZoom)
.on("mouseover", mapMouseOver)
.on("mouseout", mapMouseOut);
});
and a mouseover event handler that changes the fill and stroke colors
var mapMouseOver(d){
d3.selectAll($("#" + d.id))
.style("fill", "red")
.style("stroke", "blue");
}
Typically, most tutorials say to use
d3.select(this)...
but actually using the value works as well. If you have an event handler that gets you the ID of the node, and trigger it via
$("#someDropdownSelect").change(someEventHandler)
function someEventHandler(){
//get node ID value, sample
var key = $(this)
.children(":selected")
.val();
//trigger mouseover event handler
mapMouseOver({id : key});
}
will execute the mouseover event based on a dropdown selection