Comments on: Rich Matlab editbox contents

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:05:40 +0000

Regular Matlab uicontrols do not support syntax hiliting – you need to use one of the controls I mentioned in http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/syntax-highlighted-labels-panels/

By: Camilo

Camilo — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:55:47 +0000

Hello,
it’s possible to set this property (Matlab Syntax) in a uicontrol type text?
thanks.

Thank you!

Best regards

Camilo

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:06:16 +0000

@Youlian and any other reader interested in syntax highlighting – I posted an expanded article about this topic in http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/syntax-highlighted-labels-panels/

By: Youlian

Youlian — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:05:25 +0000

Hello Yair,

thank you very much for your fast response. The code you posted worked quite well, with one exception, which is probably Matlab version dependent. The statement:
codeType = com.mathworks.widgets.text.mcode.MLanguage.M_MIME_TYPE;

led in Matlab 2008b to the following Matlab error:
??? Undefined variable “com” or class
“com.mathworks.widgets.text.mcode.MLanguage.M_MIME_TYPE”.

Instead of it I used:
codeType = com.mathworks.widgets.SyntaxTextPane.M_MIME_TYPE;

I tested it in Matlab 7.1, 2006b, 2007a and 2008b and it worked well.

Thank you very much once again!

Best regards

Youlian

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:54:41 +0000

@Youlian – Yes it is possible. Here’s a short code snippet demonstrating this (I will provide more details and other possibilities in an article sometime in the upcoming weeks):

jCodePane = com.mathworks.widgets.SyntaxTextPane;
codeType = com.mathworks.widgets.text.mcode.MLanguage.M_MIME_TYPE;
jCodePane.setContentType(codeType)
str = ['% create a file for output\n' ...
       '!touch testFile.txt\n' ...
       'fid = fopen(''testFile.txt'', ''w'');\n' ...
       'for i=1:10\n' ...
       '    % Unterminated string:\n' ...
       '    fprintf(fid,''%6.2f \\n, i);\n' ...
       'end'];
str = sprintf(strrep(str,'%','%%'));
jCodePane.setText(str)
jScrollPane = com.mathworks.mwswing.MJScrollPane(jCodePane);
[jhPanel,hContainer] = javacomponent(jScrollPane,[10,10,300,100],gcf);

SyntaxTextPane panel (Matlab MIME type)

By: Youlian

Youlian — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:37:27 +0000

Hello,
first I would like to thank you for the usefull information I found in your blog. And now to my question: Do you know an easy way to have a matlab editor like features (syntax highliting, smart indent, …) in an editable multiline text box?

Thank you!

Best regards

Youlian

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:08:24 +0000

@Amichay - when you copy a styled Matlab text, it gets copied as Rich-Text Formatted (RTF) data. Some applications, like MS Word, automatically know how to use RTF data when you paste sch contents into them. If you need to paste into your own application, you need to create a dedicated RTF-sensitive CCP drop target. This is a very technical issue that is well outside the boundaries of this comment (or blog). You can start here.

By: amichay

amichay — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:46:59 +0000

Yair,
I actually want to get (by copy paste) a text with colored text (such for example as some editros like matlab m-file editor) into the editbox (or if you can suggest something better) and process the text also according to the text color. Can you suggest what to do?

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:58:54 +0000

@Amichay – if you use style runs then you can try to use getCharacterAttributes(); if you use HTML you don’t have an easy solution AFAIK, but if you are in control of the data that is placed in the editbox then you can keep meta-data information stored where it can later be retrieved (for example, in the control’s appdata).

By: amichay

amichay — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:33:57 +0000

Thanks.

Can you please explain how I can read from the editbox this information – for example what is the color of the first word in the third line?

I have problems understanding that part or retreiving information.