Add support for annotating array design features

[Nicklas Nordborg]

In the normal scenario array design features are more or less just pointer to reporters. The reporters can have annotations on them.

In some cases it would be useful to be able to annotate the features instead of/in addition to the reporters.

One use case is if an array design is created to represent a specific version of a genome (via GTF file). The GTF file contain genomic position coordinates which can be added as annotations to the reporters. Now, in a later version of the genome/GTF file the genomic position may be changed but the actual gene or transcript remains the same. Updating the reporter annotations may create problems for data that is mapped with the old array design and old positions. This problem would be solved by having the positions as annotations to the array design features instead, while other gene-centric annotations can remain on the reporter.

The core part of this feature is probably relatively easy to implement, but then there are lots of other additional features that must be implemented:

• The GUI must be updated so we can view the information, including filtering on list tables, exporting etc.
• Import plug-ins must be updated/created to allow importing the annotations.
• The clone reporter functionality (#1616) should be able to also clone feature annotations.
• Count amount of information against user quota?