Is there a way to programmatically manage which figure gets placed where? Let’s say I have 5 figures docked, and I split it into 2 x 1, I want to place 3 specific figures on the ‘top row’, and 2 specific figures on the ‘bottom row’. I’ve had no luck finding any settings to dock to a specific tile pane, all figures are docked to the ToolGroup app/Group, then it’s being split up by some logic from there.
This becomes more problematic if I’m modifying dimensions and merging columns. So I want row 1 to span 2 columns, and row 2 to have 2 separate columns. Sometimes this works fine, other times I can see figures just disappear, they’re still there via their handle checks but somehow invisible and I can’t get them back into a pane or appear anywhere. Some type of ‘assign figure to pane’ would be extremely useful. I’ll keep searching…

titleStr = char(hFig.Name);
if strcmpi(hFig.NumberTitle,'on')
   prefix = ['Figure ' num2str(hFig.Number)];
   if ~isempty(titleStr)
      titleStr = [prefix ': ' titleStr];
   else
      titleStr = prefix;
   end
end

jToolGroup = hFig.JavaFrame_I.getFigurePanelContainer.getTopLevelAncestor;
%alternative: =hToolGroup.SwingToolstrip.getComponent.getTopLevelAncestor;

jTab = findjobj(jToolGroup, 'class','DTDocumentTabs$Tab', 'property',{'Text',titleStr});
if ~isempty(jTab)
   jCloseButton = jTab.getComponent(0);
   jTab.remove(jCloseButton);  % or: jCloseButton.setVisible(false)
   jTab.repaint
end

Found it, findjobj utility was extremely helpful here, you can see there’s a CloseButton object there, just need to set the visible parameter to false. Easily done in the findjobj utility, will take some more time to figure out how to do it programmatically as my java is not particularly strong.
It’s actually not part of the figure, it’s a tab close button, need to figure out how to navigate to that object’s location to set it.
Very much appreciate all the material you’ve put out on this, no way I would’ve otherwise figured out (or known about) any of this!

@Arash – I plan to discuss client layups in a future post of this mini-series. In the meantime you can play with this:

jDesktop = com.mathworks.mlservices.MatlabDesktopServices.getDesktop;
dockType = jDesktop.TILED;  % NONE=0, MAXIMIZED=1, TILED=2, FLOATING=3
panelSize = java.awt.Dimension(2,1);  % 2 columns, 1 row  (leave =[] for non-TILED)
jDesktop.setDocumentArrangement(hToolGroup.Name, dockType, panelSize);