Technical articles - Undocumented Matlab

JMI – Java-to-Matlab Interface

JMI enables calling Matlab functions from within Java. This article explains JMI’s core functionality.

April 14, 2010 27 Comments

Image Easter egg

The default image presented by Matlab’s image function has a very interesting undocumented story.

April 6, 2010 2 Comments

Plot LimInclude properties

The plot objects’ XLimInclude, YLimInclude, ZLimInclude, ALimInclude and CLimInclude properties are an important feature, that has both functional and performance implications.

March 31, 2010 9 Comments

Axes LooseInset property

Matlab plot axes have an undocumented LooseInset property that sets empty margins around the axes, and can be set to provide a tighter fit of the axes to their surroundings.

March 24, 2010 21 Comments

Plot LineSmoothing property

LineSmoothing is a hidden and undocumented plot line property that creates anti-aliased (smooth unpixelized) lines in Matlab plots

March 17, 2010 34 Comments

Matlab and the Event Dispatch Thread (EDT)

The Java Swing Event Dispatch Thread (EDT) is very important for Matlab GUI timings. This article explains the potential pitfalls and their avoidance using undocumented Matlab functionality.

March 10, 2010 40 Comments

Setting desktop tab completions

The Matlab desktop’s Command-Window tab-completion can be customized for user-defined functions

March 3, 2010 37 Comments

Inactive Control Tooltips & Event Chaining

Inactive Matlab uicontrols cannot normally display their tooltips. This article shows how to do this with a combination of undocumented Matlab and Java hacks.

February 24, 2010 8 Comments

Additional uicontrol tooltip hacks

Matlab’s uicontrol tooltips have several limitations that can be overcome using the control’s underlying Java object.

February 17, 2010 7 Comments

Continuous slider callback

Matlab slider uicontrols do not enable a continuous-motion callback by default. This article explains how this can be achieved using undocumented features.

February 8, 2010 56 Comments

Solving a MATLAB bug by subclassing

Matlab’s Image Processing Toolbox’s impoint function contains an annoying bug that can be fixed using some undocumented properties.

February 7, 2010 4 Comments

Customizing listbox & editbox scrollbars

Matlab listbox and multi-line editbox uicontrols have pre-configured scrollbars. This article shows how they can be customized.

February 1, 2010 54 Comments

setPrompt – Setting the Matlab Desktop prompt

The Matlab Desktop’s Command-Window prompt can easily be modified using some undocumented features

January 25, 2010 15 Comments

Rich Matlab editbox contents

The Matlab editbox uicontrol does not handle HTML contents as do other uicontrols. In this article I show how this limitation can be removed.

January 20, 2010 53 Comments

FindJObj GUI – display container hierarchy

The FindJObj utility can be used to present a GUI that displays a Matlab container’s internal Java components, properties and callbacks.

January 12, 2010 7 Comments

FindJObj – find a Matlab component's underlying Java object

The FindJObj utility can be used to access and display the internal components of Matlab controls and containers. This article explains its uses and inner mechanism.

January 6, 2010 69 Comments

Customizing Matlab's Workspace table

The Matlab Desktop’s Workspace pane table can be customized, as described here

January 2, 2010 19 Comments

GUI integrated HTML panel

Simple HTML can be presented in a Java component integrated in Matlab GUI, without requiring the heavy browser control.

December 15, 2009 3 Comments

GUI integrated browser control

A fully-capable browser component is included in Matlab and can easily be incorporated in regular Matlab GUI applications. This article shows how.

December 9, 2009 68 Comments

Customizing help popup contents

The built-in HelpPopup, available since Matlab R2007b, has a back-door that enables displaying arbitrary text, HTML and URL web-pages.

November 30, 2009 9 Comments

Customizing print setup

Matlab figures print-setup can be customized to automatically prepare the figure for printing in a specific configuration

November 25, 2009 9 Comments

Undocumented XML functionality

Matlab’s built-in XML-processing functions have several undocumented features that can be used by Java-savvy users

November 18, 2009 6 Comments

Customizing Matlab labels

Matlab’s text uicontrol is not very customizable, and does not support HTML or Tex formatting. This article shows how to display HTML labels in Matlab and some undocumented customizations

November 11, 2009 12 Comments

Customizing uiundo

This article describes how Matlab’s undocumented uiundo undo/redo manager can be customized

November 4, 2009 9 Comments

uiundo – Matlab's undocumented undo/redo manager

The built-in uiundo function provides easy yet undocumented access to Matlab’s powerful undo/redo functionality. This article explains its usage.

October 29, 2009 2 Comments

Leuze (16 days 21 hours ago): Hello, I would like to add a new object into SLDD and display columns according to my object properties <>
Eric Delgado (45 days 23 hours ago): Hey Yair, I think your site is the right place to share that I wrote ccTools, a lib that allows a lot of customizations of Matlab built-in web components (such as uifigure,...
Eric Delgado (45 days 23 hours ago): Hey guys, first of all, thanks to @Yair, your site saved me a lot of times! 🙂 That’s why I am sharing that I wrote m2mlapp (*.m => *.mlapp) file conversion, that...
François (62 days 21 hours ago): more than 10 years later it helps me after struggling few hours, so thanks you very much !
Yair Altman (63 days 19 hours ago): I am not familiar with a universal catch-all tab-completion mechanism for all functions, and it also doesn’t make much sense to me, because different functions use...
Arye (64 days 13 hours ago): hi, is there a universal functionSignature.json file that will allow my to get the function hints when opening brackets of my funcs? something that automaticly recognize my function...
Sunham (67 days 8 hours ago): This is an old article, but the issue persists even in 2023. 2023a: z = mat2cell(1:1e6,1,repmat(1,1,1e 6)); f = @() cellfun(‘isempty’, z); g = @() cellfun(@isempty,z);...
Yair Altman (76 days 22 hours ago): Robot only runs when you tell it to run a command such as keyPress. If you don’t tell it to run a command, it uses no CPU, so there’s no need to remove the Robot...
Eric (77 days 9 hours ago): Hey @Kevin, can you share your code about create group of figures in the AppContainer? The container of multiples uifigures could be an amazing improvement over AppDesigner and its...
Elsa Smith (78 days 0 hours ago): I recently used java.awt.Robot to perform GUI testing on MATLAB and found it to be an extremely easy and useful way to control mouse movements.
Elsa Smith (78 days 0 hours ago): I’m suspecting that the slow performance of my GUI may be due to the use of java.awt.Robot. Is there a way to cancel/stop/remove the robot after it has been created, or is...
Michelle Kline (78 days 17 hours ago): *edit* tip about fopen(), not about fwrite(). ‘Wb’ vs. ‘wb’
Michelle Kline (78 days 17 hours ago): Thank you, Yair! With this previously-unknown-to-me tip about fwrite() performance, you have saved me literally hours of processing time. Michelle Kline Department of...
Alessandro Beda (91 days 5 hours ago): I found what I think is a bug related to this (tested in R2022 and R2023a). If I add a “ButtonDownFcn” to the plots (see example below), then the modified...
Nicholas (92 days 20 hours ago): Yair, Changing the desktop help options did not solve the issue. Though, it’s unclear how I could change these options in the Runtime, if that’s what you meant? I should...