Comments on: Matlab toolstrip – part 3 (basic customization)

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Sun, 16 Jun 2019 15:26:19 +0000

Unfortunately, docking figures into ToolGroups is for some unknown reason (apparently deliberately) prevented by the Matlab Compiler. I am not aware of any workaround for this, at the moment.

By: Endri K.

Endri K. — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 21:36:24 +0000

Hi Yair,

Thank you for all your great posts. They’re all extremely helpful. Could you please help me with an issue I’m facing? I’ve built an application with a ToolGroup and when using the Matlab Application Compiler, in the compiled standalone version, I cannot get hToolGroup.addFigure to dock a new figure in the existing ToolGroup window. I have tried a number of approaches and have been unsuccessful. For this application I am currently using Matlab 2017b.

Thank you,
Endri

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 22:14:41 +0000

@Arash - the "handles" that you refer to is a simple Matlab struct that contains the GUI handles in separate fields. You can easily create it in your code by assigning each created GUI object (tab, section, column, button etc.) a separate field in the struct, and in the end saving this struct somewhere. You cannot use guidata or guihandles because they only work with figures (not apps), but you can store the handles struct elsewhere e.g. in a global variable, or attached to one of the figures that you dock into your app.

By: Arash Marashian

Arash Marashian — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 22:04:06 +0000

Hi, I have a question, can I use something like “handles”, that we have in GUI?

By: Chen Wang

Chen Wang — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 08:57:05 +0000

Thx so much, Collin.
This works 😀

By: Collin Pecora

Collin Pecora — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 00:50:29 +0000

Chen

I don’t believe the R2016b version has any methods to set position

You can do it through the desktop:

jDesktop = com.mathworks.mlservices.MatlabDesktopServices.getDesktop;
jPos = com.mathworks.widgets.desk.DTLocation.createExternal(uint16(100), uint16(200), uint16(300), uint16(400));
jDesktop.setGroupLocation('A Test', jPos);

Collin

By: Chen Wang

Chen Wang — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 15:12:24 +0000

Thx a lot.
i think, it is probably impossible in 16b to set an opening size. i haven’t found any available function
but this is not that bad, in 16b the most new futures of toolgroup still work and till now they are enough for me.

Thx u again for ur post

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 08:30:57 +0000

@Chen - 16b is a relatively old release (19a is 5 releases ahead). It is quite possible that the setPosition method was added in one of these later releases. I have not investigated this but it's possible that there may have been an alternative method in 16b (e.g. setLocation or whatever). You can run methodview(hTG) to check the possibilities, or upgrade to a later Matlab release.

By: Chen Wang

Chen Wang — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 07:59:43 +0000

Hi Yair,
thx for your answer
i have tried with your suggestion:

hTG = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.ToolGroup('A Test');
hTG.open();
hTG.disableDataBrowser();
jTG = hTG.Peer;
jPos = com.mathworks.widgets.desk.DTLocation.createExternal(uint16(100), uint16(200), uint16(300), uint16(400));
jTG.setPosition(jPos);

but i got error:

Undefined function or variable 'setPosition'.

PS: i’m using Matlab 2016b.

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 15:43:14 +0000

@Chen – I will discuss positioning and layout in a future post, but for now you can adapt the following script. Note that the positioning uses Java-based coordinates, which is (0,0) at the top-left corner of the screen, and increases downward and to the right, and the position is for the tool-group’s top-left corner. So, position (100,200,800,600) means a 800×600 window whose top-left corner is 100 pixels to the right, and 200 pixels below, the screen’s top-left corner.

% Alternative #1:
hToolGroup = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.ToolGroup();
hToolGroup.setPosition(100, 200, 800, 600);  % x,y,width,height
 
% Alternative #2:
jToolGroup = hToolGroup.Peer;
jPosition = com.mathworks.widgets.desk.DTLocation.createExternal(uint16(100),uint16(200),uint16(800),uint16(600));
jToolGroup.setPosition(jPosition);

By: chen wang

chen wang — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 15:20:45 +0000

hi Yair,
thx so much for this post.
i have a question: is it possible to manully set an openiong Position or Size for this toolgroup?
i have tried all day and i can not find any Container, which has the ‘position’ properties or something alike.

best regards

By: Ramiro Massol

Ramiro Massol — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 19:10:00 +0000

hi Yair, thanks for the file you uploaded to the usage examples section.
Happy New Year! best

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 19:21:34 +0000

I added a downloadable file that can be run as-is, at the top of the Usage Examples section.

By: Ramiro Massol

Ramiro Massol — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 18:17:30 +0000

hi Yair,
i was just trying to reproduce the code you freely publish on your site to test the features of the toolstrip. I guess other readers of your blog will encounter the same issue and I thought you should be aware of it. I’ve already tried opening the toolgroup at other instances with the same effect.

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 17:24:15 +0000

Ramiro – I’m sorry, but I only do private consulting projects as (well) private consulting projects…
Try to display the tool-group at other places within your code, before the end.

By: Ramiro Massol

Ramiro Massol — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 17:13:54 +0000

hi Yair, I tried that before but i’ve got a weird toolgroup that changed the name and showed no toolstrip at all and was docked to the command window too. I can send you the picture of it if you want. If i open the toolgroup at the start everything looks fine but i can’t add a section.
best

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 14:56:37 +0000

As the error says, you can't update a toolstrip after it has been rendered (shown). Simply move the hToolGroup.open() command to the end of your script/function.

By: Ramiro Massol

Ramiro Massol — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 14:21:37 +0000

great. By the way, I tried the code you posted in section 2 of the toolstrips and noticed an error while trying to create a section (“% “Section” cannot be added to “Tab” after toolstrip is rendered.”). This happens all the time when i tried to add a section regardless of the 2 methods you described above. What’s causing this behavior? best

By: Yair Altman

Yair Altman — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 11:11:56 +0000

I plan to discuss this in a future post

By: Ramiro Massol

Ramiro Massol — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 10:24:07 +0000

hi Yair,
first of all, thanks a lot for all the detailed and useful info you wrote about toolstrips. Are you planning to explain how to add and customize toolstrips for figures created with GUIDE?

best
Ramiro