Setting system tray popup messages

Yair,
Thanks again for this utility, just thought I would let you know that I’m using this to replace any helpdlg boxes that I previously used to give process direction during a program, like click here, or define this range. Using this, a user can breeze through a program if they know what to do, or go slowly and read the pop-ups.

[…] Unfortunately, Matlab prevents using Java classnames containing a period (e.g., Port.Info) or static Interface values, so we cannot directly access Port.Info.SPEAKER or FloatControl.Type.VOLUME. I’ve reported this bug to Mathworks earlier this year, and I do not know in which Matlab release (if at all) they intend to fix it. Until then we need to use workarounds, as in the code above. I posted a similar issue (and its workaround) earlier in this blog, when setting system-tray popup message. […]

On the version (R2007b) of Matlab I use this statement does not work:
trayIconClasses = trayIcon.getClass.getClasses;
??? No method ‘getClass’ with matching signature found for class ‘java.awt.TrayIcon’.

Is it supprted on later versions?

Albert – it should work on Matlab installations that run JVM 1.6+. To determine your JVM version, type the following in your Command Window:

version -java

If this is not helpful, try to inspect the trayIcon object using the methodsview function, to see why the getClass method fails:

methodsview(trayIcon);

i couldn’t run SoundVolume function on Matlab.. When i write SoundVolume=10; then nothing happens .. How can i run the SoundVolume function which is written at

^[9]

@andandgui – did you even read the SoundVolume help?

SoundVolume is not a variable that you can assign like SoundVolume=10, but a function that accepts input parameters like SoundVolume (1.0) and it only accepts values between 0.0-1.0 so 10 is not a valid value.

Also, next time, please post the question in the relevant page ( ^[9]) – your question has nothing to do with this page.

Dear Yair

This looks like a great utility. Unfortunately it does not work properly on my system (Matlab 2010a, Windows XP, Java 1.6.0_12-b04). To start with I call

hIcon = systray('C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2010a\toolbox\matlab\icons\help_ex.png');

Afterwards, the only command that works is the set command for deletion. Setting message pop-ups and the like does not work (does not yield any error messages, but does not affect the icon).

Furthermore, if I click the icon in the system tray I get the exception pasted below.

Have you any suggestions on how to get around this. I have tried the exception fix you link to on the uisplitpane post, but that does not help either. Thanks for a great site and lots of cool applications

Peter

Exception in thread “AWT-EventQueue-0″ java.lang.ClassCastException: 
java.awt.TrayIcon cannot be cast to java.awt.Component
at com.mathworks.widgets.tooltip.ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.mouseInTipComponent(ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.java:175)
at com.mathworks.widgets.tooltip.ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.eventDispatched(ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.java:125)
at java.awt.Toolkit$SelectiveAWTEventListener.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
...
at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Toolkit.notifyAWTEventListeners(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.TrayIcon.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)

That looks like a “bug.” I’ll ask them to fix it, but the earliest it would be done would be 12b, if at all…

@Mike – thanks – couldn’t ask for anything more

[…] Note: Users interested in non-intrusive status-bar messages, may also be interested in another non-intrusive messaging mechanism which I have described some months ago: Setting system tray popup messages. […]

Dear Yair,

as all the others I’d like to thank you for the wonderful systray tool. It’s really great.

While I implemented it these days in an old 2007b installation, it worked without any problem. (At least after having included the solution for the messages as pointed out in your uisplitpane entry).

Now I’m trying to migrate to 2010bSP1 and stumbled over two problems:

a) Java complained about setting the popup entry enabled using your line

set(menuItem,'Enabled',get(thisItem,'Enable'));

As I’m not familiar with java: Is the workaround

menuItem.setEnabled(strcmp(get(thisItem,'Enable'),'on'));

valid?

b) I get the same error message as Peter mentioned above when trying to access the popup menu:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.ClassCastException: java.awt.TrayIcon cannot be cast to java.awt.Component
	at com.mathworks.widgets.tooltip.ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.mouseInTipComponent(ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.java:177)
	at com.mathworks.widgets.tooltip.ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.eventDispatched(ToolTipAndComponentAWTListener.java:128)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$SelectiveAWTEventListener.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit$ToolkitEventMulticaster.eventDispatched(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Toolkit.notifyAWTEventListeners(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.TrayIcon.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)

As I learned, this is an Java 1.6 issue. Is there a workaround on the Matlab-level for systray available? Or what else could be done?

Best wishes,

Alexander

Update:

Going through the implementation in 2010b I found a second problematic point. In line 232, the “ActionPerformedCallback” is set. This also drops an warning. Now I found on of your infos on using set/get with core java object in the entry on Uicontrol callbacks. Is it thus reasonable to change

set(menuItem,'ActionPerformedCallback',get(thisItem,'Callback'));

to

set(handle(menuItem,'CallbackProperties'),'ActionPerformedCallback',get(thisItem,'Callback'));

If so, I’d suggest to make an update of the FileExchange version (also including the comments made in the uisplitpanel entry). If not, I’m really interested in a workaround.

Alexander

@Alexander – using menuItem.setEnabled() is indeed safe and valid, and in fact better than using set(…). Your fix for using CallbackProperties is also correct – this is described in ^[10].

Unfortunately, I do not have a solution for the popup message errors at this time. If I do, I will post it on this page.

thanks for the code and the explanation with picures

Hi Yair
nice utility!
In the post you don’t provide the code for the multi-line example.
Do you use char(10) for breaking lines? Example:

systray(hIconTray,'Message',{'title',['informational message',char(10),'Second line'],'info'})

It may be nice if the systray function would accept as message as cellstr and breaking lines automatically like usual in Matlab msgbox.
Example:

systray(hIconTray,'Message',{'title',{'informational message','Second line'},'info'})

@Thierry – indeed, char(10) can be used to break lines in the systray message.

You might also try to use ^[11] with a <br/> tag (untested, but I think it should work).

Cell arrays are currently not supported unfortunately.

One could convert cellstr in multi-lines char with one line:
msg={‘Another’,’multi-line’,’Example’}
sprintf(‘%s\n’,msg{:})
so one can then pass it to systray.

For handling recurring warnings because of java exceptions I’ve come to the solution to clear the java events on mouse click. I had also to update the list of exceptions. See extracted code below:

set(trayIcon,'MousePressedCallback',@clearexc)

function clearexc()
   t = java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();
   ev = t.getAWTEventListeners();
   for i = 1 : length(ev)
      str = ev(i).getListener().getClass.toString;  
      if str.indexOf('com.mathworks.mwswing.desk.DTSelectionManager') >= 0 || ... % see http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/uisplitpane/#comment-658
         str.indexOf('javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicLookAndFeel') >= 0 || ...
         str.indexOf('com.mathworks.widgets.text.mcode.MLintDecorator') >= 0 || ...
         str.indexOf('com.mathworks.widgets.desk.DTSelectionManager') >=0 || ... % TD
         str.indexOf('com.mathworks.widgets.grouptable.ToolTipSupport') >=0 || ... % TD
         str.indexOf('com.mathworks.widgets.text.STPMessagePanel') >=0 || ... % TD
         str.indexOf('com.mathworks.widgets.text.MWToolTipSupport') >=0 || ... % TD->crashes on double-click
         str.indexOf('com.mathworks.widgets.tooltip') >=0, % TD
            t.removeAWTEventListener(ev(i));
            %disp(str)
      end
   end  % for ev
end  % function clearexc

I used your code but I have eccepetion with this too.

When I use this code this code any exception. Is this true?

set(tray,'MousePressedCallback',@clearexc)
t = java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();
ev = t.getAWTEventListeners();
for i = 1 : length(ev)
    str = ev(i).getListener().getClass.toString;
    t.removeAWTEventListener(ev(i));
end

Is any problem with this code?

Thanks

I could not find a way to delete/clear the current popup message…

@Thierry – the popup is in general automatically removed by the operating system after several seconds. You can always set the popup message to empty (see the code in systray utility (setIconMessage() sub-function).

You can also delete and recreate the systray to get the same effect as workaround. Read the code in the systray utility to see how (basically, java.awt.SystemTray.getSystemTray.remove(jcomp)).