Toolstrips can be a bit complex to develop so I’m proceeding slowly, with each post in the miniseries building on the previous posts. I encourage you to review the earlier posts in the Toolstrip miniseries before reading this post.

Also, remember to add the following code snippet at the beginning of your code so that the relevant toolstrip classes will be recognized by Matlab:

import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*

Main steps and usage example

To attach a figure popup to a toolstrip control, follow these steps:

1. Create a new figure, using GUIDE or the figure function. The figure should typically be created modal and non-visible, unless there’s a good reason to avoid this. Note that the figure needs to be a legacy (Java-based) figure, created with GUIDE or the figure function — web-based uifigure (created with AppDesigner or the uifigure function) is not [currently] supported.
2. Create a callback function that opens and initializes this figure, and then moves it to the expected screen location using the following syntax: hToolGroup.showFigureDialog(hFig,hAnchor), where hFig is the figure’s handle, and hAnchor is the handle for the triggering toolstrip control.
3. Attach the callback function to the triggering toolstrip control.

Here’s a simple usage example, in which I present a file-selector popup:

% Create a toolstrip section, column & push-button
hSection = hTab.addSection('Popup');
hColumn = hSection.addColumn();
hButton = Button('Open',Icon.OPEN_24);
hButton.ButtonPushedFcn = {@popupFigure,hButton};  % attach popup callback to the button
hColumn.add(hButton);
 
% Callback function invoked when the toolstrip button is clicked
function popupFigure(hAction, hEventData, hButton)
    % Create a new non-visible modal figure
    hFig = figure('MenuBar','none', 'ToolBar','none', 'WindowStyle','modal', ...
                  'Visible','off', 'NumberTitle','off', 'Name','Select file:');
 
    % Add interactive control(s) to the figure (in this case, a file chooser initialized to current folder)
    jFileChooser = handle(javaObjectEDT(javax.swing.JFileChooser(pwd)), 'CallbackProperties');
    [jhFileChooser, hComponent] = javacomponent(jFileChooser, [0,0,200,200], hFig);
    set(hComponent, 'Units','normalized', 'Position',[0,0,1,1]);  % resize component within containing figure
 
    % Set popup control's callback (in this case, display the selected file and close the popup)
    jhFileChooser.ActionPerformedCallback = @popupActionPerformedCallback;
    function popupActionPerformedCallback(jFileChooser, jEventData)
        fprintf('Selected file: %s\n', char(jFileChooser.getSelectedFile));
        delete(hFig);
    end
 
    % Display the popup figure onscreen, just beneath the triggering button
    showFigureDialog(hToolGroup,hFig,hButton);
 
    % Wait for the modal popup figure to close before resuming GUI interactivity
    waitfor(hFig);
end

This leads to the popup figure as shown in the screenshot above.

The popup figure initially appears directly beneath the triggering button. The figure can then be moved away from that position, by dragging its title bar or border frame.

Note how the popup is an independent heavy-weight figure window, having a border frame, title bar and a separate task-bar icon. Removing the border frame and title-bar of Matlab figures can be done using an undocumented visual illusion – this can make the popup less obtrusive, but also prevent its moving/resizing. An entirely different and probably better approach is to present a light-weight popup panel using the Toolpack framework, which I plan to discuss in the following post(s). The PopupPanel container that I discussed in another post cannot be used, because it is displayed as a sub-component of a Matlab figure, and in this case the popup is not attached to any figure (the toolstrip and ToolGroup are not Matlab figures, as explained here).

The astute reader may wonder why I bothered going to all the trouble of displaying a modal popup with a JFileChooser, when I could have simply used the built-in uigetfile or uiputfile functions in the button’s callback. The answer is that (a) this mechanism displays the popup directly beneath the triggering button using hToolGroup.showFigureDialog(), and also (b) enables complex popups (dialogs) that have no direct builtin Matlab function (for example, a file-selector with preview, or a multi-component input form).

Compatibility considerations for R2018a or older

In Matlab releases R2018a or older that do not have the hToolGroup.showFigureDialog() function, you can create it yourself in a separate showFigureDialog.m file, as follows:

function showFigureDialog(hToolGroup, hFig, hAnchor)
    %   showFigureDialog - Display a figure-based dialog below a toolstrip control.
    %
    %   Usage example:
    %       showFigureDialog(hToolGroup, hFig, hAnchor);
    %   where: 
    %       "hToolGroup" must be a "matlab.ui.internal.desktop.ToolGroup" handle
    %       "hFig" must be a "figure" handle, not a "uifigure"
    %       "hAnchor" must be a "matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.***" handle
 
    %hWarn = ctrlMsgUtils.SuspendWarnings('MATLAB:HandleGraphics:ObsoletedProperty:JavaFrame'); %#ok<NASGU>
    hWarn = warning('off','MATLAB:HandleGraphics:ObsoletedProperty:JavaFrame');
    jf = get(hFig, 'JavaFrame');
    if isempty(jf)
        error('UI figure cannot be added to "ToolGroup". Use a regular figure instead.')
    else
        screen_size = get(0,'ScreenSize');
        old_pos = get(hFig,'OuterPosition');
        dpi_ratio = com.mathworks.util.ResolutionUtils.scaleSize(100)/100;
        jAnchor = hToolGroup.ToolstripSwingService.Registry.getWidgetById(hAnchor.getId());
        pt = javaMethodEDT('getLocationOnScreen',jAnchor); % pt is anchor top left
        pt.y = pt.y + jAnchor.getVisibleRect().height;     % pt is anchor bottom left
        new_x = pt.getX()/dpi_ratio-5;                           % figure outer left
        new_y = screen_size(end)-(pt.getY/dpi_ratio+old_pos(4)); % figure outer bottom
        hFig.OuterPosition = [new_x new_y old_pos(3) old_pos(4)];
        hFig.Visible = 'on';
    end
    warning(hWarn);
end

Under the hood of showFigureDialog()

How does showFigureDialog() know where to place the figure, directly beneath the triggering toolstrip anchor?

The answer is really quite simple, if you look at this method’s source-code in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+desktop/ToolGroup.m (around line 500, depending on the Matlab release).

The function first checks whether the input hFig handle belongs to a figure or uifigure, and issues an error message in case it’s a uifigures (only legacy figures are currently supported).
Then the function fetches the toolstrip control’s underlying Java control handle using the following code (slightly modified for clarity), as explained here:

jAnchor = hToolGroup.ToolstripSwingService.Registry.getWidgetById(hAnchor.getId());

Next, it uses the Java control’s getLocationOnScreen() to get the control’s onscreen position, accounting for monitor DPI variation that affects the X location.
The figure’s OuterPosition property is then set so that the figure’s top-left corner is exactly next to the control’s bottom-left corner.
Finally, the figure’s Visible property is set to ‘on’ to make the figure visible in its new position.

The popup figure’s location is recomputed by showFigureDialog() whenever the toolstrip control is clicked, so the popup figure is presented in the expected position even when you move or resize the tool-group window.

Toolstrip miniseries roadmap

The following post(s) will present the Toolpack framework. Non-figure (lightweight) popup toolpack panels can be created, which appear more polished/stylish than the popup figures that I presented today. The drawdown is that toolpack panels may be somewhat more complex to program than figures, and IMHO are more likely to change across Matlab releases. In addition to the benefit of popup toolpack panels, toolpack presents an alternative way for toolstrip creation and customization, enabling programmers to choose between using the toolstrip framework (that I discussed so far), and the new toolpack framework.

In a succeeding post, I’ll discuss toolstrip collapsibility, i.e. what happens when the user resizes the window, reducing the toolstrip width. Certain toolstrip controls will drop their labels, and toolstrip sections shrink into a drop-down. The priority of control/section collapsibility can be controlled, so that less-important controls will collapse before more-important ones.

In future posts, I plan to discuss docking layout, DataBrowser panel, QAB (Quick Access Bar), underlying Java controls, and adding toolstrips to figures – not necessarily in this order.
Matlab toolstrips can be a bit complex, so I plan to proceed in small steps, each post building on top of its predecessors.

If you would like me to assist you in building a custom toolstrip or GUI for your Matlab program, please let me know.

Toolstrips can be a bit complex to develop so I’m proceeding slowly, with each post in the miniseries building on the previous posts. I encourage you to review the earlier posts in the Toolstrip miniseries before reading this post.

Also, remember to add the following code snippet at the beginning of your code so that the relevant toolstrip classes will be recognized by Matlab:

import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*

Gallery sub-components

Toolstrip gallery popup components

• Gallery or DropDownGalleryButton
  • GalleryPopup
    • GalleryCategory
      • GalleryItem or ToggleGalleryItem
      • GalleryItem or ToggleGalleryItem
      • …
    • GalleryCategory
    • …

For a demonstration of toolstrip Galleries, see the code files in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+desktop/, specifically showcaseToolGroup.m and showcaseBuildTab_Gallery.m.

GalleryPopup

We first create the GalleryPopup object, then add to it a few GalleryCategory groups of GalleryItem, ToggleGalleryItem buttons. In the example below, we use a ButtonGroup to ensure that only a single ToggleGalleryItem button is selected:

import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*
popup = GalleryPopup('ShowSelection',true);
 
% Create gallery categories
cat1 = GalleryCategory('CATEGORY #1 SINGLE'); popup.add(cat1);
cat2 = GalleryCategory('CATEGORY #2 SINGLE'); popup.add(cat2);
cat3 = GalleryCategory('CATEGORY #3 SINGLE'); popup.add(cat3);
 
% Create a button-group to control item selectability
group = matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.ButtonGroup;
 
% Add items to the gallery categories
fpath = [fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','matlab','toolstrip','web','image') filesep];  % icons path
 
item1 = ToggleGalleryItem('Biology', Icon([fpath 'biology_app_24.png']), group);
item1.Description = 'Select the Biology gizmo';
item1.ItemPushedFcn = @(x,y) ItemPushedCallback(x,y);
cat1.add(item1);
 
item2 = ToggleGalleryItem('Code Generation', Icon([fpath 'code_gen_app_24.png']), group);
cat1.add(item2);
 
item3 = ToggleGalleryItem('Control', Icon([fpath 'control_app_24.png']), group);
cat1.add(item3);
 
item4 = ToggleGalleryItem('Database', Icon([fpath 'database_app_24.png']), group);
cat1.add(item4);
...

Single-selection GalleryPopup (icon view)

Note that in a real-world situation, we’d assign a Description, Tag and ItemPushedFcn to all gallery items. This was elided from the code snippet above for readability, but should be part of any actual GUI. The Description only appears as tooltip popup in icon-view (shown above), but appears as a visible label in list-view (see below).

Gallery items selection: push-button action, single-selection toggle, multiple selection toggle

If we use ToggleGalleryItem without a ButtonGroup, multiple gallery items can be selected, rather than just a single selection as shown above:

...
item1 = ToggleGalleryItem('Biology', Icon([fpath 'biology_app_24.png']));item1.Description = 'Select the Biology gizmo';
item1.ItemPushedFcn = @(x,y) ItemPushedCallback(x,y);
cat1.add(item1);
 
item2 = ToggleGalleryItem('Code Generation', Icon([fpath 'code_gen_app_24.png']));cat1.add(item2);
 
item3 = ToggleGalleryItem('Control', Icon([fpath 'control_app_24.png']));cat1.add(item3);
 
item4 = ToggleGalleryItem('Database', Icon([fpath 'database_app_24.png']));cat1.add(item4);
...

Multiple-selection GalleryPopup (icon view)

Alternatively, if we use GalleryItem instead of ToggleGalleryItem, the gallery items would be push-buttons rather than toggle-buttons. This enables us to present a gallery of single-action state-less push-buttons, rather than state-full toggle-buttons. The ability to customize the gallery items as either state-less push-buttons or single/multiple toggle-buttons supports a wide range of application use-cases.

Customizing the GalleryPopup

Properties that affect the GalleryPopup appearance are:

• DisplayState – initial display mode of gallery items (string; default=’icon_view’, valid values: ‘icon_view’,’list_view’)
• GalleryItemRowCount – number of rows used in the display of the in-line gallery (integer; default=1, valid values: 0,1,2). A Value of 2 should typically be used with a small icon and GalleryItemWidth (see below)
• GalleryItemTextLineCount – number of rows used for display of the item label (integer; default=2, valid values: 0,1,2)
• ShowSelection – whether or not to display the last-selected item (logical; default=false). Needs to be true for Gallery and false for DropDownGalleryButton.
• GalleryItemWidth – number of pixels to allocate for each gallery item (integer, hidden; default=80)
• FavoritesEnabled – whether or not to enable a “Favorites” category (logical, hidden; default=false)

All of these properties are defined as private in the GalleryPopup class, and can only be specified during the class object’s construction. For example, instead of the default icon-view, we can display the gallery items as a list, by setting the GalleryPopup‘s DisplayState property to 'list_view' during construction:

popup = GalleryPopup('DisplayState','list_view');

GalleryPopup (list view)

Gallery and DropDownGalleryButton

Now that we have prepared GalleryPopup, let’s integrate it in our toolstrip.
We have two choices — either in-line within the toolstrip section (using Gallery), or as a compact drop-down button (using DropDownGalleryButton):

% Inline gallery
section = hTab.addSection('Multiple Selection Gallery');
column = section.addColumn();
popup = GalleryPopup('ShowSelection',true);
% add the GalleryPopup creation code above
gallery = Gallery(popup, 'MinColumnCount',2, 'MaxColumnCount',4);
column.add(gallery);
 
% Drop-down gallery
section = hTab.addSection('Drop Down Gallery');
column = section.addColumn();
popup = GalleryPopup();
% add the GalleryPopup creation code above
button = DropDownGalleryButton(popup, 'Examples', Icon.MATLAB_24);
button.MinColumnCount = 5;
column.add(button);

Clicking any of the drop-down (arrow) widgets will display the associated GalleryPopup.

The Gallery and DropDownGalleryButton objects have several useful settable properties:

• Popup – a GalleryPopup object handle, which is displayed when the user clicks the drop-down (arrow) widget. Only settable in the constructor, not after object creation.
• MinColumnCount – minimum number of item columns to display (integer; default=1). In Gallery, this property is only settable in the constructor, not after object creation; if not enough width is available to display these columns, the control collapses into a drop-down. In DropDownGalleryButton, this property can be set even after object creation (despite incorrect internal documentation), and controls the width of the popup panel.
• MaxColumnCount – maximal number of items columns to display (integer; default=10). In Gallery, this property is only settable in the constructor, not after object creation. In DropDownGalleryButton, this property can be set even after object creation but in any case seems to have no visible effect.
• Description – tooltip text displayed when the mouse hovers over the Gallery area (outside the area of the internal gallery items, which have their own individual Descriptions), or over the DropDownGalleryButton control.
• TextOverlay – a semi-transparent text label overlaid on top of the gallery panel (string, default=”). Only available in Gallery, not DropDownGalleryButton.

For example:

gallery = Gallery(popup, 'MinColumnCount',2, 'MaxColumnCount',4);
gallery.TextOverlay = 'Select from these items';

Effect of TextOverlay

Toolstrip miniseries roadmap

The next post will discuss popup forms. These are similar in concept to galleries, in the sense that when we click the drop-down widget a custom popup panel is displayed. In the case of a popup form, this is a fully-customizable Matlab GUI figure.

Following that, I plan to discuss toolstrip collapsibility, the Toolpack framework, docking layout, DataBrowser panel, QAB (Quick Access Bar), underlying Java controls, and adding toolstrips to figures – not necessarily in this order.
Matlab toolstrips can be a bit complex, so I plan to proceed in small steps, each post building on top of its predecessors.

If you would like me to assist you in building a custom toolstrip or GUI for your Matlab program, please let me know.

Toolstrip SplitButton with dynamic popup and static sub-menu

Toolstrips can be a bit complex to develop so I’m proceeding slowly, with each post in the miniseries building on the previous posts. I encourage you to review the earlier posts in the Toolstrip miniseries before reading this post.

Also, remember to add the following code snippet at the beginning of your code so that the relevant toolstrip classes will be recognized by Matlab:

import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*

There are 4 types of popups in toolstrip controls:

1. Builtin dropdown (combo-box) selector similar to the familiar uicontrol(‘style’,’popup’,…). In toolstrips, this is implemented using the DropDown control.
2. A more complex dropdown selector having icons and tooltips, implemented using the DropDownButton and SplitButton toolstrip controls.
3. An even-more complex drop-down selector, which presents a gallery of options. This will be discussed in detail in the next post.
4. A fully-customizable form panel (“popup form”). This will be discussed separately, in the following post.

DropDown

The simple DropDown toolstrip control is very easy to set up and use:

hPopup = DropDown({'Label1';'Label2';'Label3'});
hPopup.Value = 'Label3';
hPopup.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;

Toolstrip DropDown

We can have the control hold a different value for each of the displayed labels, by specifying the input items as an Nx2 cell-array:

items = {'One',   'Label1'; ...
         'Two',   'Label2'; ...
         'Three', 'Label3'}
hPopup = DropDown(items);
hPopup.Value = 'Two';
hPopup.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;

This drop-down control will display the labels “Label1”, “Label2” (initially selected), and “Label3”. Whenever the selected drop-down item is changed, the corresponding popup Value will change to the corresponding value. For example, when “Label3” is selected in the drop-down, hPopup.Value will change to ‘Three’.

Another useful feature of the toolstrip DropDown control is the Editable property (logical true/false, default=false), which enables the user to modify the entry in the drop-down’s editbox. Any custom text entered within the editbox will update the control’s Value property to that string.

ListBox

We can create a ListBox in a very similarly manner to DropDown. For example, the following code snippet creates a list-box that spans the entire toolstrip column height and has 2 of its items initially selected:

hColumn = hSection.addColumn('Width',100);
allowMultiSelection = true;
items = {'One','Label1'; 'Two','Label2'; 'Three','Label3'; 'Four','Label4'; 'Five','Label5'};
hListBox = ListBox(items, allowMultiSelection);
hListBox.Value = {'One'; 'Three'};
hListBox.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;
hColumn.add(hListBox);

Toolstrip ListBox (multi-selection)

The DropDown and ListBox controls are nearly identical in terms of their properties, methods and events/callbacks, with the following notable exceptions:

• ListBox controls do not have an Editable property
• ListBox controls have a MultiSelect property (logical, default=false), which DropDowns do not have. Note that this property can only be set during the ListBox‘s creation, as shown in the code snippet above.

DropDownButton and SplitButton

A more elaborate drop-down selector can be created using the DropDownButton and SplitButton toolstrip controls. For such controls, we create a PopupList object, and add elements to it, which could be any of the following, in whichever order that you wish:

1. PopupListHeader – a section header (title), non-selectable
2. ListItem – a selectable list item, with optional Icon, Text, and Description (tooltip string, which for some reason [probably a bug] is not actually shown). For some reason (perhaps a bug), the Description is not shown in a tooltip (no tooltip is displayed). However, it is displayed as a label beneath the list-item’s main label, unless we set ShowDescription to false.
3. ListItemWithCheckBox – a selectable list item that toggles a checkmark icon based on the list item’s selection Value (on/off). The checkmark icon is not customizable (alas).
4. ListItemWithPopup – a non-selectable list item, that displays a sub-menu (another PopupList that should be set to the parent list-item’s Popup property).

A simple usage example (adapted from the showcaseToolGroup demo):

Toolstrip PopupList

function hPopup = createPopup()
 
    import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*
    hPopup = PopupList();
 
    % list header #1
    header = PopupListHeader('List Items');
    hPopup.add(header);
 
    % list item #1
    item = ListItem('This is item 1', Icon.MATLAB_16);
    item.Description = 'this is the description for item #1';
    item.ShowDescription = true;
    item.ItemPushedFcn = @ActionPerformedCallback;
    hPopup.add(item);
 
    % list item #2
    item = ListItem('This is item 2', Icon.SIMULINK_16);
    item.Description = 'this is the description for item #2';
    item.ShowDescription = false;
    addlistener(item, 'ItemPushed', @ActionPerformedCallback);
    hPopup.add(item);
 
    % list header #2
    header = PopupListHeader('List Item with Checkboxes');
    hPopup.add(header);
 
    % list item with checkbox
    item = ListItemWithCheckBox('This is item 3', true);
    item.ValueChangedFcn = @PropertyChangedCallback;
    hPopup.add(item);
 
    % list item with popup
    item = ListItemWithPopup('This is item 4',Icon.ADD_16);
    item.ShowDescription = false;
    hPopup.add(item);
 
    % Sub-popup
    hSubPopup = PopupList();
    item.Popup = hSubPopup;
    % sub list item #1
    sub_item1 = ListItem('This is sub item 1', Icon.MATLAB_16);
    sub_item1.ShowDescription = false;
    sub_item1.ItemPushedFcn = @ActionPerformedCallback;
    hSubPopup.add(sub_item1);
    % sub list item #2
    sub_item2 = ListItem('This is sub item 2', Icon.SIMULINK_16);
    sub_item2.ShowDescription = false;
    sub_item2.ItemPushedFcn = @ActionPerformedCallback;
    hSubPopup.add(sub_item2);
 
end  % createPopup()

We now have two alternatives for attaching this popup to the DropDownButton or SplitButton:

Toolstrip SplitButton with dynamic popup and static sub-menu

• Static popup – set the Popup property of the button or ListItemWithPopup to the popup-creation function (or hPopup). The popup will be created once and will remain unchanged throughout the program execution. For example:

  hButton = DropDownButton('Vertical', Icon.OPEN_24);
  hButton.Popup = createPopup();

• Dynamic popup – set the DynamicPopupFcn of the button or ListItemWithPopup to the popup creation function. This function will be invoked separately whenever the user clicks on the drop-down selector widget. Inside our popup-creation function we can have state-dependent code that modifies the displayed list items depending on the state of our program/environment. For example:

  hButton = SplitButton('Vertical', Icon.OPEN_24);
  hButton.ButtonPushedFcn = @ActionPerformedCallback;  % invoked when user clicks the main split-button part
  hButton.DynamicPopupFcn = @(h,e) createPopup();      % invoked when user clicks the drop-down selector widget

DropDownButton and SplitButton are exactly the same as far as the popup-list is concerned: If it is set via the Popup property then the popup is static (in the sense that it is only evaluated once, when created), and if it is set via DynamicPopupFcn then the popup is dynamic (re-created before display). The only difference between DropDownButton and SplitButton is that in addition to the drop-down control, a SplitButton also includes a regular push-button control (with its corresponding ButtonPushedFcn callback).

In summary:

• If DynamicPopupFcn is set to a function handle, then the PopupList that is returned by that function will be re-evaluated and displayed whenever the user clicks the main button of a DropDownButton or the down-arrow part of a SplitButton. This happens even if the Popup property is also set i.e., DynamicPopupFcn has precedence over Popup; when both of them are set, Popup is silently ignored (it would be useful for Matlab to display a warning in such cases, hopefully in a future release).
• If DynamicPopupFcn is not set but Popup is (to a PopupList object handle), then this PopupList will be computed only once (when first created) and then it will be displayed whenever the user clicks the main button of a DropDownButton or the down-arrow part of a SplitButton.
• Separately from the above, if a SplitButton‘s ButtonPushedFcn property is set to a function handle, then that function will be evaluated whenever the user clicks the main button of the SplitButton. No popup is presented, unless of course the callback function displays a popup programmatically. Note that ButtonPushedFcn is a property of SplitButton; this property does not exist in a DropDownButton.

Important note: whereas DropDown and ListBox have a ValueChangedFcn callback that is invoked whenever the drop-down/listbox Value has changed, the callback mechanism is very different with DropDownButton and SplitButton: here, each menu item has its own individual callback that is invoked when that item is selected (clicked): ItemPushedFcn for ListItem; ValueChangedFcn for ListItemWithCheckBox; and DynamicPopupFcn for ListItemWithPopup. As we shall see later, the same is true for gallery items – each item has its own separate callback.

Galleries

Toolstrip galleries are panels of buttons (typically large icons with an attached text label), which are grouped in “categories”.

The general idea is to first create the GalleryPopup object, then add to it a few GalleryCategory groups, each consisting of GalleryItem (push-buttons) and/or ToggleGalleryItem (toggle-buttons) objects. Once this GalleryPopup is created, we can either integrate it in-line within the toolstrip section (using Gallery), or as a compact drop-down button (using DropDownGalleryButton):

% Inline gallery
section = hTab.addSection('Multiple Selection Gallery');
column = section.addColumn();
popup = GalleryPopup('ShowSelection',true);
% add the GalleryPopup creation code (see next week's post)
gallery = Gallery(popup, 'MaxColumnCount',4, 'MinColumnCount',2);
column.add(gallery);
 
% Drop-down gallery
section = hTab.addSection('Drop Down Gallery');
column = section.addColumn();
popup = GalleryPopup();
% add the GalleryPopup creation code (see next week's post)
button = DropDownGalleryButton(popup, 'Examples', Icon.MATLAB_24);
button.MinColumnCount = 5;
column.add(button);

I initially planned to include all the relevant Gallery discussion here, but it turned out to require so much space that I decided to devote a separate article for it — this will be the topic of next week’s blog post.

Toolstrip miniseries roadmap

The next post will discuss Galleries in depth, followed by popup forms.

Following that, I plan to discuss toolstrip collapsibility, the ToolPack framework, docking layout, DataBrowser panel, QAB (Quick Access Bar), underlying Java controls, and adding toolstrips to figures – not necessarily in this order.
Matlab toolstrips can be a bit complex, so I plan to proceed in small steps, each post building on top of its predecessors.

If you would like me to assist you in building a custom toolstrip or GUI for your Matlab program, please let me know.

Toolstrips can be a bit complex to develop so I’m proceeding slowly, with each post in the miniseries building on the previous posts. I encourage you to review the earlier posts in the Toolstrip miniseries before reading this post.

The first place to search for potential toostrip components/controls is in Matlab’s built-in toolstrip demos. The showcaseToolGroup demo displays a large selection of generic components grouped by function. These controls’ callbacks do little less than simply output a text message in the Matlab console. On the other hand, the showcaseMPCDesigner demo shows a working demo with controls that interact with some docked figures and their plot axes. The combination of these demos should provide plenty of ideas for your own toolstrip implementation. Their m-file source code is available in the %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+desktop/ folder. To see the available toolstrip controls in action and how they could be integrated, refer to the source-code of these two demos.

All toolstrip controls are defined by classes in the %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+toolstrip/ folder and use the matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip package prefix, for example:

% Alternative 1:
hButton = matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.Button;
 
% Alternative 2:
import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*
hButton = Button;

For the remainder of today’s post it is assumed that you are using one of these two alternatives whenever you access any of the toolstrip classes.

Top-level toolstrip controls

In addition to the control properties listed in the table above, all toolstrip controls share some common properties:

• Description – a string that is shown in a tooltip when you hover the mouse over the control
• Enabled – a logical value (default: true) that controls whether we can interact with the control. A disabled control is typically grayed-over. Note that the value is a logical true/false, not ‘on’/’off’
• Tag – a string that can be used to uniquely identify/locate the control via their container’s find(tag) and findAll(tag) methods. Can contain spaces and special symbols – does not need to be a valid Matlab identifier
• Children – contains a list of sub-component (if any); useful with complex controls
• Parent – the handle of the container that contains the control
• Type – the type of control, typically its class-name
• Mnemonic – an undocumented string property, currently unused (?)
• Shortcut – an undocumented string property, currently unused (?)

The EmptyControl, Button, ToggleButton and CheckBox controls were discussed in an earlier post of this miniseries. The bottom 6 selection controls (ListBox, DropDown, DropDownButton, SplitButton, Gallery and DropDownGalleryButton) will be discussed in the next post. The rest of the controls are described below.

Button groups

A ButtonGroup binds several CheckBox and ToggleButton components such that only one of them is selected (pressed) at any point in time. For example:

hSection = hTab.addSection('Radio-buttons');
hColumn = hSection.addColumn();
 
% Grouped RadioButton controls
hButtonGroup = ButtonGroup;
hRadio = RadioButton(hButtonGroup, 'Option choice #1');
hRadio.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;
hColumn.add(hRadio);
 
hRadio = RadioButton(hButtonGroup, 'Option choice #2');
hRadio.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;
hRadio.Value = true;
hColumn.add(hRadio);

Toolstrip ButtonGroup

Also note that the internal documentation of ButtonGroup has an error – it provides an example usage with RadioButton that has its constructor inputs switched: the correct constructor is RadioButton(hButtonGroup,labelStr). On the other hand, for ToggleButton, the hButtonGroup input is the [optional] 3rd input arg of the constructor: ToggleButton(labelStr,Icon,hButtonGroup). I think that it would make much more sense for the RadioButton constructor to follow the documentation and the style of ToggleButton and make the hButtonGroup input the last (2nd, optional) input arg, rather than the 1st. In other words, it would make more sense for RadioButton(labelStr,hButtonGroup), but unfortunately this is currently not the case.

Label, EditField and TextArea

A Label control is a simple non-clickable text label with an optional Icon, whose text is controlled via the Text property. The label’s alignment is controlled by the containing column’s HorizontalAlignment property.

An EditField is a single-line edit-box. Its string contents can be fetched/updated via the Value property, and when the user updates the edit-box contents the ValueChangedFcn callback is invoked (upon each modification of the string, i.e. every key-click). This is a pretty simple control actually.

The EditField control has a hidden (undocumentented) settable property called PlaceholderText, which presumably aught to display a gray initial prompt within the editbox. However, as far as I could see this property has no effect (perhaps, as the name implies, it is a place-holder for a future functionality…).

A TextArea is another edit-box control, but enables entering multiple lines of text, unlike EditField which is a single-line edit-box. TextArea too is a very simple control, having a settable Value string property and a ValueChangedFcn callback. Whereas EditField controls, being single-line, would typically be included in 2- or 3-element toolstrip columns, the TextArea would typically be placed in a single-element column, so that it would span the entire column height.

A peculiarity of toolstrip columns is that unless you specify their Width property, the internal controls are displayed with a minimal width (the width is only controllable at the column level, not the control-level). This is especially important with EditField and TextArea controls, which are often empty by default, causing their assigned width to be minimal (only a few pixels). This is corrected by setting their containing column’s Width:

% EditField controls
column1 = hSection.addColumn('HorizontalAlignment','right');
column1.add(Label('Yaba:'))
column1.add(Label('Daba doo:'))
 
column2 = hSection.addColumn('Width',70);
column2.add(EditField);
column2.add(EditField('Initial text'));
 
% TextArea control
column3 = hSection.addColumn('Width',90);
hEdit = TextArea;
hEdit.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;
column3.add(hEdit);

Toolstrip Label, EditField and TextArea

Spinner

Spinner is a single-line numeric editbox that has an attached side-widget where you can increase/decrease the editbox value by a specified amount, subject to predefined min/max values. If you try to enter an illegal value, Matlab will beep and the editbox will revert to its last acceptable value. You can only specify a NumberFormat of ‘integer’ or ‘double’ (default: ‘integer’) and a DecimalFormat which is a string composed of the number of sub-decimal digits to display and the format (‘e’ or ‘f’). For example, DecimalFormat=’4f’ will display 4 digits after the decimal in floating-point format (‘e’ means engineering format). Here is a short usage example (notice the different ways that we can set the callbacks):

hColumn = hSection.addColumn('Width',100);
 
% Integer spinner (-100 : 10 : 100)
hSpinner = Spinner([-100 100], 0);  % [min,max], initialValue
hSpinner.Description = 'this is a tooltip description';
hSpinner.StepSize = 10;
hSpinner.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;
hColumn.add(hSpinner);
 
% Floating-point spinner (-10 : 0.0001 : 10)
hSpinner = Spinner([-10 10], pi);  % [min,max], initialValue
hSpinner.NumberFormat = 'double';
hSpinner.DecimalFormat = '4f';
hSpinner.StepSize = 1e-4;
addlistener(hSpinner,'ValueChanged', @ValueChangedCallback);
addlistener(hSpinner,'ValueChanging',@ValueChangingCallback);
hColumn.add(hSpinner);

Toolstrip Spinner

Slider

Slider is a horizontal ruler on which you can move a knob from the left (min Value) to the right (max Value). The ticks and labels are optional and customizable. Here is a simple example showing a plain slider (values between 0-100, initial value 70, ticks every 5, labels every 20, step size 1), followed by a custom slider (notice again the different ways that we can set the callbacks):

hColumn = hSection.addColumn('Width',200);
 
hSlider = Slider([0 100], 70);  % [min,max], initialValue
hSlider.Description = 'this is a tooltip';
tickVals = 0 : 20 : 100;
hSlider.Labels = [compose('%d',tickVals); num2cell(tickVals)]';  % {'0',0; '20',20; ...}
hSlider.Ticks = 21;  % =numel(0:5:100)
hSlider.ValueChangedFcn = @ValueChangedCallback;
hColumn.add(hSlider);
 
hSlider = Slider([0 100], 40);  % [min,max], initialValue
hSlider.Labels = {'Stop' 0; 'Slow' 20; 'Fast' 50; 'Too fast' 75; 'Crash!' 100};
try hSlider.UseSmallFont = true; catch, end  % UseSmallFont was only added in R2018b
hSlider.Ticks = 11;  % =numel(0:10:100)
addlistener(hSlider,'ValueChanged', @ValueChangedCallback);
addlistener(hSlider,'ValueChanging',@ValueChangingCallback);
hColumn.add(hSlider);

Toolstrip Slider

Toolstrip miniseries roadmap

The next post will discuss complex selection components, including listbox, drop-down, split-button, and gallery.

Following that, I plan to discuss toolstrip collapsibility, the ToolPack framework, docking layout, DataBrowser panel, QAB (Quick Access Bar), underlying Java controls, and adding toolstrips to figures – not necessarily in this order.
Matlab toolstrips can be a bit complex, so I plan to proceed in small steps, each post building on top of its predecessors.

If you would like me to assist you in building a custom toolstrip or GUI for your Matlab program, please let me know.

Toolstrip example (basic controls)

Component icons

Many toolstrip controls (such as buttons, but not checkboxes for example) have a settable Icon property. The standard practice is to use a 16×16 icon for a component within a multi-component toolstrip column (i.e., when 2 or 3 components are displayed on top of each other), and a 24×24 icon for a component that spans the entire column height (i.e., when the column contains only a single component).

We can use one of the following methods to specify the icon. Note that you need to import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.* if you wish to use the Icon class without the preceding package name.

• The Icon property value is typically empty ([]) by default, meaning that no icon is displayed.
   
• We can use one of ~150 standard icons using the format Icon.<icon-name>. For example: icon = Icon.REFRESH_24. These icons typically come in 2 sizes: 16×16 pixels (e.g. Icon.REFRESH_16) that we can use with the small-size components (which are displayed when the column has 2-3 controls), and 24×24 pixels (e.g. REFRESH_24) that we can use with the large-size components (which are displayed when the column contains only a single control). You can see the list of the standard icons by running

  matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.Icon.showStandardIcons

  
• We can use the Icon constructor by specifying the full filepath for any PNG or JPG image file. Note that other file type (such as GIF) are not supported by this method. For example:

  icon = Icon(fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','matlab','icons','tool_colorbar.png')); % PNG/JPG image file (not GIF!)

  In fact, the ~150 standard icons above use this mechanism under the hood: Icon.REFRESH_24 is basically a public static method of the Icon class, which simply calls Icon('REFRESH_24','Refresh_24') (note the undocumented use of a 2-input Icon constructor). This method in turn uses the Refresh_24.png file in Matlab’s standard toolstrip resources folder: %matlabroot%/toolbox/shared/controllib/general/resources/toolstrip_icons/Refresh_24.png.

• We can also use the Icon constructor by specifying a PNG or JPG file contained within a JAR file, using the standard jar:file:...jar!/ notation. There are numerous icons included in Matlab’s JAR files – simply open these files in WinZip or WinRar and browse. In addition, you can include images included in any external JAR file. For example:

  icon = Icon(['jar:file:/' matlabroot '/java/jar/mlwidgets.jar!/com/mathworks/mlwidgets/actionbrowser/resources/uparrow.png']);

• We can also use the Icon constructor by specifying a Java javax.swing.ImageIcon object. Fortunately we can create such objects from a variety of image formats (including GIFs). For example:

  iconFilename = fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','matlab','icons','boardicon.gif');
  jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(iconFilename);  % Java ImageIcon from file (inc. GIF)
  icon = Icon(jIcon);

  If we need to resize the Java image (for example, from 16×16 to 24×24 or vise versa), we can use the following method:

  % Resize icon to 24x24 pixels
  jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(iconFilename);  % get Java ImageIcon from file (inc. GIF)
  jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(jIcon.getImage.getScaledInstance(24,24,jIcon.getImage.SCALE_SMOOTH))  % resize to 24x24
  icon = Icon(jIcon);

• We can apparently also use a CSS class-name to load images. This is only relevant for the JavaScript-based uifigures, not legacy Java-based figures that I discussed so far. Perhaps I will explore this in some later post that will discuss toolstrip integration in uifigures.

App window icon

The app window’s icon can also be set. By default, the window uses the standard Matlab membrane icon (%matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/icons/matlabicon.gif). This can be modified using the hToolGroup.setIcon method, which currently [R2018b] expects a Java ImageIcon object as input. For example:

iconFilename = fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','matlab','icons','reficon.gif');
jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(iconFilename);
hToolGroup.setIcon(jIcon)

This icon should be set before the toolgroup window is shown (hToolGroup.open).

Custom app window icon

An odd caveat here is that the icon size needs to be 16×16 – setting a larger icon results in the icon being ignored and the default Matlab membrane icon used. For example, if we try to set ‘boardicon.gif’ (16×17) instead of ‘reficon.gif’ (16×16) we’d get the default icon instead. If our icon is too large, we can resize it to 16×16, as shown above:

% Resize icon to 16x16 pixels
jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(iconFilename);  % get Java ImageIcon from file (inc. GIF)
jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(jIcon.getImage.getScaledInstance(16,16,jIcon.getImage.SCALE_SMOOTH))  % resize to 16x16
hToolGroup.setIcon(jIcon)

It’s natural to expect that hToolGroup, which is a pure-Matlab MCOS wrapper class, would have an Icon property that accepts Icon objects, just like for controls as described above. For some reason, this is not the case. It’s very easy to fix it though – after all, the Icon class is little more than an MCOS wrapper class for the underlying Java ImageIcon (not exactly, but close enough). Adapting ToolGroup‘s code to accept an Icon is quite easy, and I hope that MathWorks will indeed implement this in a near-term future release. I also hope that MathWorks will remove the 16×16 limitation, or automatically resize icons to 16×16, or at the very least issue a console warning when a larger icon is specified by the user. Until then, we can use the setIcon(jImageIcon) method and take care to send it the 16×16 ImageIcon object that it expects.

Toolstrip miniseries roadmap

The next post will discuss complex components, including button-group, drop-down, listbox, split-button, slider, popup form, gallery etc.

Following that, my plan is to discuss toolstrip collapsibility, the ToolPack framework, docking layout, DataBrowser panel, QAB (Quick Access Bar), underlying Java controls, and adding toolstrips to figures – not necessarily in this order. Matlab toolstrips can be a bit complex, so I plan to proceed in small steps, each post building on top of its predecessors.

If you would like me to assist you in building a custom toolstrip or GUI for your Matlab program, please let me know.

Toolstrip example (basic controls)

Today’s post will show how to attach user-defined functionality to toolstrip components, as well as some additional customizations. At the end of today’s article, you should be able to create a fully-functional custom Matlab toolstrip. Today’s post will remain within the confines of a Matlab “app”, i.e. a tool-group that displays docked figures. Future posts will discuss lower-level toolstrip mechanisms, that enable advanced customizations as well as integration in legacy (Java-based, even GUIDE-created) Matlab figures.

Control callbacks

Controls are useless without settable callbacks that affect the program state based on user interactions. There are two different mechanisms for setting callbacks for Matlab toolstrip controls. Refer to the example in the previous post:

1. Setting the control’s callback property or properties – the property names differ across components (no, for some reason it’s never as simple as Callback in standard uicontrols). For example, the main action callback for push-buttons is ButtonPushedFcn, for toggle-buttons and checkboxes it’s ValueChangedFcn and for listboxes it’s . Setting the callback is relatively easy:

   hColorbar.ValueChangedFcn = @toggleColorbar;
    
   function toggleColorbar(hAction,hEventData)
       if hAction.Selected
           colorbar;
       else
           colorbar('off');
       end
   end

   The hAction object that is passed to the callback function as the first input arg contains various fields of interest, but for some reason the most important object property (Value) is renamed as the Selected property (most confusing). Also, a back-reference to the originating control (hColorbar in this example), which is important for many callbacks, is also missing (and no – I couldn’t find it in the hidden properties either):

   >> hAction
   hAction = 
     Action with properties:
    
               Description: 'Toggle colorbar display'
                   Enabled: 1
                  Shortcut: ''
                  Selected: 1
           QuickAccessIcon: []
       SelectionChangedFcn: @toggleColorbar
                      Text: 'Colorbar'
           IsInQuickAccess: 0
               ButtonGroup: []
                      Icon: [1×1 matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.Icon]
    
   >> hEventData
   hEventData = 
     ToolstripEventData with properties:
    
       EventData: [1×1 struct]
          Source: [0×0 handle]
       EventName: ''
    
   >> hEventData.EventData
   ans = 
     struct with fields:
    
       Property: 'Value'
       NewValue: 1
       OldValue: 0

   Note that hEventData.Source is an empty handle for some unknown reason.

   The bottom line is that to reference the button state using this callback mechanism we need to either:

   1. Access hAction‘s Selected property which stands-in for the originating control’s Value property (this is what I have shown in the short code snippet above)
   2. Access hEventData.EventData and use its reported Property, NewValue and OldValue fields
   3. Pass the originating control handle as an extra (3rd) input arg to the callback function, and then access it from within the callback. For example:

      hColorbar.ValueChangedFcn = {@toggleColorbar, hColorbar};
       
      function toggleColorbar(hAction,hEventData,hButton)
          if hButton.Value %hAction.Selected
              colorbar;
          else
              colorbar('off');
          end
      end

2. As an alternative, we can use the addlistener function to attach a callback to control events. Practically all toolstrip components expose public events that can be listened-to using this mechanism. In most cases the control’s callback property name(s) closely follow the corresponding events. For example, for buttons we have the ValueChanged event that corresponds to the ValueChangedFcn property. We can use listeners as follows:

   hCheckbox.addlistener('ValueChanged',@toggleLogY);
    
   function toggleLogY(hCheckbox,hEventData)
       if hCheckbox.Value, type = 'log'; else, type = 'linear'; end
       set(gca, 'XScale',type, 'YScale',type, 'ZScale',type);
   end

   Note that when we use the addlistener mechanism to attach callbacks, we don’t need any of the tricks above – we get the originating control handle as the callback function’s first input arg, and we can access it directly.

   Unfortunately, we cannot pass extra args to the callback that we specify using addlistener (this seems like a trivial and natural thing to have, for MathWorks’ attention…). In other words, addlistener only accepts a function handle as callback, not a cell array. To bypass this limitation in uicontrols, we typically add the extra parameters to the control’s UserData or ApplicationData properties (the latter via the setappdata function). But alas – toolstrip components have neither of these properties, nor can we add them in runtime (as with for other GUI controls). So we need to find some other way to pass these extra values, such as using global variables, or making the callback function nested so that it could access the parent function’s workspace.

Additional component properties

Component text labels, where relevant, can be set using the component’s Text property, and the tooltip can be set via the Description property. As I noted in my previous post, I believe that this is an unfortunate choice of property names. In addition, components have control-specific properties such as Value (checkboxes and toggle buttons). These properties can generally be modified in runtime, in order to reflect the program state. For example, we can disable/enable controls, and modify their label, tooltip and state depending on the control’s new state and the program state in general.

The component icon can be set via the Icon property, where available (for example, buttons have an icon, but checkboxes do not). There are several different ways in which we can set this Icon. I will discuss this in detail in the following post; in the meantime you can review the usage examples in the previous post.

There are a couple of additional hidden component properties that seem promising, most notably Shortcut and Mnemonic (the latter (Mnemonic) is also available in Section and Tab, not just in components). Unfortunately, at least as of R2018b these properties do not seem to be connected yet to any functionality. In the future, I would expect them to correspond to keyboard shortcuts and underlined mnemonic characters, as these functionalities behave in standard menu items.

Accessing the underlying Java control

As long as we’re not displaying the toolstrip on a browser page (i.e., inside a uifigure or Matlab Online), the toolstrip is basically composed of Java Swing components from the com.mathworks.toolstrip.components package (such as TSButton or TSCheckBox). I will discuss these Java classes and their customizations in a later post, but for now I just wish to show how to access the underlying Java component of any Matlab MCOS control. This can be done using a central registry of toolstrip components (so-called “widgets”), which is accessible via the ToolGroup‘s hidden ToolstripSwingService property, and then via each component’s hidden widget Id. For example:

>> widgetRegistry = hToolGroup.ToolstripSwingService.Registry;
>> jButton = widgetRegistry.getWidgetById(hButton.getId)  % get the hButton's underlying Java control
ans =
com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSToggleButton[,"Colorbar",layout<>,NORMAL]

We can now apply a wide variety of Java-based customizations to the retrieved jButton, as I have shown in many other articles on this website over the past decade.

Another way to access the toolstrip Java component hierarchy is via hToolGroup.Peer.get(tabIndex).getComponent. This returns the top-level Java control representing the tab whose index in tabIndex (0=left-most tab):

>> jToolGroup = hToolGroup.Peer;  % or: =hToolGroup.ToolstripSwingService.SwingToolGroup;
>> jDataTab = jToolGroup.get(0).getComponent;  % Get tab #0 (first tab: "Data")
>> jDataTab.list   % The following is abridged for brevity
com.mathworks.toolstrip.impl.ToolstripTabContentPanel[tab0069230a-52b0-4973-b025-2171cd96301b,0,0,831x93,...]
 SectionWrapper(section54fb084c-934d-4d31-9468-7e4d66cd85e5)
  com.mathworks.toolstrip.impl.ToolstripSectionComponentWithHeader[,0,0,241x92,...]
   com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSPanel[section54fb084c-934d-4d31-9468-7e4d66cd85e5,,layout<HORIZONTAL>,NORMAL]
    TSColumn -> layout<> :
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSButton[,"Refresh all",layout<>,NORMAL]
    TSColumn -> layout<> :
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSButton[,"Refresh X,Y",layout<>,NORMAL]
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSButton[,"Refresh Y,Z",layout<>,NORMAL]
    TSColumn -> layout<> :
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSButton[,"Refresh X",layout<>,NORMAL]
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSButton[,"Refresh Y",layout<>,NORMAL]
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSButton[,"Refresh Z",layout<>,NORMAL]
 SectionWrapper(sectionebd8ab95-fd33-4a3d-8f24-152589713994)
  com.mathworks.toolstrip.impl.ToolstripSectionComponentWithHeader[,0,0,159x92,...]
   com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSPanel[sectionebd8ab95-fd33-4a3d-8f24-152589713994,,layout<HORIZONTAL>,NORMAL]
    TSColumn -> layout<> :
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSCheckBox[,"Axes borders",layout<>,NORMAL]
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSCheckBox[,"Log scaling",layout<>,NORMAL]
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSCheckBox[,"Inverted Y",layout<>,NORMAL]
 SectionWrapper(section01995bfd-61de-490f-aa22-de50bae1af75)
  com.mathworks.toolstrip.impl.ToolstripSectionComponentWithHeader[,0,0,125x92,...]
   com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSPanel[section01995bfd-61de-490f-aa22-de50bae1af75,,layout<HORIZONTAL>,NORMAL]
    TSColumn -> layout<> :
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSToggleButton[,"Legend",layout<>,NORMAL]
    TSColumn -> layout<> :
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSLabel[null," ",layout<>,NORMAL]
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSToggleButton[,"Colorbar",layout<>,NORMAL]
     com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSLabel[null," ",layout<>,NORMAL]
 com.mathworks.mwswing.MJButton[toolstrip.header.collapseButton,808,70,20x20,...]

Toolstrip miniseries roadmap

The next post will discuss icons, for both toolstrip controls as well as the ToolGroup app window.

I plan to discuss complex components in subsequent posts. Such components include button-group, drop-down, listbox, split-button, slider, popup form, gallery etc.

Following that, my plan is to discuss toolstrip collapsibility, the ToolPack framework, docking layout, DataBrowser panel, QAB (Quick Access Bar), underlying Java controls, and adding toolstrips to figures – not necessarily in this order.

Have I already mentioned that Matlab toolstrips can be a bit complex?

If you would like me to assist you in building a custom toolstrip or GUI for your Matlab program, please let me know.

Happy New Year, everyone!

A Matlab toolstrip is composed of a hierarchy of user-interface objects as follows (all objects are classes within the matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip package):

Anatomy of a Matlab app with toolstrip

• TabGroup
  • Tab
    • Section
      • Column
        • Component
        • Component
        • …
      • Column
      • …
    • Section
    • …
  • Tab
  • …
• TabGroup
• …

In this post I explain how we can create a custom toolstrip that contains tabs, sections, and basic controls that interact with the user and the docked figures. The following posts will show more advanced customizations and more complex controls, as well as showing alternative ways of creating the toolstrip.

1. Creating a bare toolstrip and new tabs

We start with a new ToolGroup that has a bare toolstrip and a docked figure (for details and explanations refer to the previous post):

% Create a new ToolGroup ("app") with a hidden DataBrowser
hToolGroup = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.ToolGroup('Toolstrip example on UndocumentedMatlab.com');
hToolGroup.disableDataBrowser();
hToolGroup.open();  % this may be postponed further down for improved performance
 
% Store toolgroup reference handle so that app will stay in memory
jToolGroup = hToolGroup.Peer;
internal.setJavaCustomData(jToolGroup, hToolGroup);
 
% Create two figures and dock them into the ToolGroup
hFig1 = figure('Name','3D');  surf(peaks);
hToolGroup.addFigure(hFig1);

We now create a new TabGroup and and it to our ToolGroup:

import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*  % for convenience below
hTabGroup = TabGroup();
hToolGroup.addTabGroup(hTabGroup);

We can add a new Tab to the TabGroup using either of two methods:

1. Create a new Tab object and then use TabGroup.add(hTab,index) to add it to a parent TabGroup. The index argument is optional – if specified the section is inserted at that index location; if not, it is added at the end of the tab-group. Sample usage:

   hTab = Tab('Data');
   hTabGroup.add(hTab);  % add to tab as the last section
   hTabGroup.add(hTab,3);  % add to tab as the 3rd section

2. Call TabGroup.addTab(title). This creates a new tab with the specified title (default: ”) and adds it at the end of the tab-group. The new tab’s handle is returned by the function. Sample usage:

   hTabGroup.addTab('Data');  % add to tab-group as the last tab

This creates an empty “Data” tab in our app toolstrip. Note that the tab title is capitalized (“DATA”), despite the fact that we set its Title property to 'Data'. Also note that while the tab’s Title property can be updated after the tab is created, in practice the tab title does not seem to change.

Lastly, note that a “VIEW” tab is automatically added to our toolstrip. As explained in the previous post, we can remove it using hToolGroup.hideViewTab; (refer to the previous post for details).

2. Adding sections to a toolstrip tab

Each toolstrip Tab is composed of Sections, that holds the actual components. We cannot add components directly to a Tab: they have to be contained within a Section. A toolstrip Tab can only contain Sections as direct children.

We can add a new section to a Tab using either of two methods, in a similar way to the that way we added a new tab above:

1. Create a new Section object and then use Tab.add(hSection,index) to add it to a parent Tab. The index argument is optional – if specified the section is inserted at that index location; if not, it is added at the end of the tab. Sample usage:

   hSection = Section('Section title');
   hTab.add(hSection);  % add to tab as the last section
   hTab.add(hSection,3);  % add to tab as the 3rd section

2. Call Tab.addSection(title). This creates a new section with the specified title (default: ”) and adds it at the end of the tab. The new section’s handle is returned by the function. Sample usage:

   hTab.addSection('Section title');  % add to tab as the last section

Note that the help section for Tab.addSection() indicates that it’s possible to specify 2 string input args (presumably Title and Tag), but this is in fact wrong and causes a run-time error, since Section constructor only accepts a single argument (Title), at least as of R2018b.

The Section‘s Title property can be set both in the constructor, as well as updated later. In addition, we can also set the Tag and CollapsePriority properties after the section object is created (these properties cannot be set in the constructor call):

hSection.Title = 'New title';    % can also be set in constructor call
hSection.Tag = 'section #1';     % cannot be set in constructor call
hSection.CollapsePriority = 10;  % cannot be set in constructor call

The CollapsePriority property is responsible for controlling the order in which sections and their internal components collapse into a drop-down when the window is resized to a smaller width.

Like tabs, section titles also appear capitalized. However, unlike the section titles can indeed be modified in run-time.

3. Adding columns to a tab section

Each Section in a toolstrip Tab is composed of Columns, and each Column can contain 1-3 Components. This is a very effective layout for toolstrip controls that answers the vast majority of use-cases. In some special cases we might need more flexibility with the component layout within a Tab – I will explain this in a future post. But for now let’s stick to the standard Tab-Section-Column-Component framework.

We can add columns to a section using (guess what?) either of two methods, as above:

1. Create a new Column object and then use Section.add(hColumn,index) to add it to a parent Section. The index argument is optional – if specified the column is inserted at that index location; if not, it is added at the end of the section. Sample usage:

   hColumn = Column('HorizontalAlignment','center', 'Width',150);
   hSection.add(hColumn);  % add to section as the last column
   hSection.add(hColumn,3);  % add to section as the 3rd column

2. Call Tab.addSection(title). This creates a new section with the specified title (default: ”) and adds it at the end of the tab. The new section’s handle is returned by the function. Sample usage:

   hSection.addColumn('HorizontalAlignment','center', 'Width',150);  % add to section as the last column

We can set the Column‘s HorizontalAlignment and Width properties only in the constructor call, not later via direct assignments. In contrast, the Tag property cannot be set in the constructor, only via direct assignment:

hColumn.HorizontalAlignment = 'right';  % error: can only be set via constructor call: Column('HorizontalAlignment','right', ...)
hColumn.Width = 150;                    % error: can only be set via constructor call: Column('Width',150, ...)
hColumn.Tag = 'column #2';              % ok: cannot be set via the constructor call!

This is indeed confusing and non-intuitive. Perhaps this is part of the reason that the toolstrip API is still not considered stable enough for a general documented release.

4. Adding controls to a section column

Each section column contains 1 or more Components. These can be push/toggle/split/radio buttons, checkboxes, drop-downs, sliders, spinners, lists etc. Take a look at matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+toolstrip/ for a full list of available controls. I’ll discuss a few basic controls in this post, and more complex ones in future posts.

As above, there are two methods for adding components to a section column, but they have different purposes:

1. Column.addEmptyControl() adds a filler space in the next position of the column. This is used to display the colorbar control at the center of the column in the usage snippet below.
2. Create a new Component object and then use Column.add(hComponent, index) to add it to a parent Column. The index argument is optional – if specified the component is inserted at that index location; if not, it is added at the end of the column. Sample usage:

   hButton = Button('Click me!');
   hColumn.add(hButton);  % add to column as the last component
   hColumn.add(hButton,3);  % add to column as the 3rd component

Component objects (matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.base.Component, which all usable toolstrip controls inherit) have several common properties. Leaving aside the more complex components for now, most usable controls include the following properties:

• Text – text label, displayed next to the control icon (pity that MathWorks didn’t call this property String or Label, in line with uicontrols/menu-items)
• Description – tooltip, displayed when hovering the mouse over the control (pity that MathWorks didn’t call this property Tooltip in line with uicontrols/menu-items)
• Tag – a string, as all other Matlab HG objects. Controls are searchable by their Tag via their container’s find(tag) and findAll(tag) methods (again, I don’t quite understand why not use findobj and findall as with the rest of Matlab HG…).
• Enabled – a logical value (true/false), true by default
• Icon – the icon used next to the Text label. We can use the Icon constructor (that expects the full path of a PNG/JPG file), or one of its static icons (e.g. Icon.REFRESH_16). Icons will be discussed in detail in the following post; in the meantime you can see various usage examples below.

Each control also has one or more callbacks that can be specified, as settable properties and/or as events that can be listened-to using the addlistener function. This too will be discussed in detail in the next post, but in the meantime you can see various usage examples below.

Columns can have 1-3 components:

• If only 1 component is specified, it is allocated the full column height, effectively creating a large control, with the Icon on top (typically a 24×24 icon) and the Text label beneath.
• If 2 or 3 components are specified, then smaller controls are displayed, with the Text label to the right of the Icon (typically 16×16), and the controls evenly spaced within the column.
• If you try to add more than 3 components to a Column, you’ll get a run-time error.

5. Usage example

Here is a short usage example showing the above concepts. The code is not pretty by any means – I intentionally wanted to display multiple different ways of adding components, specifying properties and callbacks etc. It is meant merely as an educational tool, and is not close to being ready for production code. So please don’t complain about the known fact that the code is ugly, non-robust, and in general exhibits bad programming practices. The complete runnable code can be downloaded here.

The following code snippets assume that you have already ran the code in paragraph 1 above:

Push-buttons section (3 columns)

Toolstrip example (basic controls)

section1 = hTab.addSection('Push buttons');
 
column1a = section1.addColumn();
icon = Icon.REFRESH_24; % built-in: see Icon.showStandardIcons()
button = Button('Refresh all',icon);
button.Description = 'Refresh the charted data - all axes';
button.ButtonPushedFcn = @refreshAllData;
column1a.add(button);
function refreshAllData(hAction,hEventData)
    hAxes = gca;
    hChildren = hAxes.Children;
    for idx = 1 : numel(hChildren)
        hChild = hChildren(idx);
        hChild.XData = -hChild.XData;
        hChild.YData = -hChild.YData;
        hChild.ZData = -hChild.ZData;
    end
end
 
column1b = section1.addColumn();
addRefresh2Button('X','Y');
addRefresh2Button('Y','Z');
function addRefresh2Button(type1, type2)
    import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*
    hButton = Button(['Refresh ' type1 ',' type2], Icon.RESTORE_16);
    hButton.Description = ['Refresh the charted data - ' type1 ',' type2 ' axes'];
    hButton.ButtonPushedFcn = {@refres2AxisData, type1, type2};
    column1b.add(hButton);
 
    function refres2AxisData(~,~,type1,type2)
        hAxes = gca;
        hChildren = hAxes.Children;
        for idx = 1 : numel(hChildren)
            hChild = hChildren(idx);
            hChild.([type1 'Data']) = -hChild.([type1 'Data']);
            hChild.([type2 'Data']) = -hChild.([type2 'Data']);
        end
    end
end
 
column1c = section1.addColumn();
addRefresh1Button('X');
addRefresh1Button('Y');
addRefresh1Button('Z');
function addRefresh1Button(type)
    import matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.*
    hButton = Button(['Refresh ' type], Icon.REDO_16);
    hButton.Description = ['Refresh the charted data - ' type ' axes'];
    addlistener(hButton, 'ButtonPushed', @refres1AxisData);  % {} not supported!
    column1c.add(hButton);
 
    function refres1AxisData(h,e)
        hAxes = gca;
        hChildren = hAxes.Children;
        for idx = 1 : numel(hChildren)
            hChild = hChildren(idx);
            hChild.([type 'Data']) = -hChild.([type 'Data']);
        end
    end
end

Toggle buttons section (2 columns)

section2 = hTab.addSection('Toggle buttons');
section2.CollapsePriority = 2;
 
column1 = Column();
section2.add(column1);
%icon = Icon.LEGEND_24;
icon = Icon(fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','shared','controllib','general','resources','toolstrip_icons','Legend_24.png')); % PNG/JPG image file (not GIF!)
button = ToggleButton('Legend',icon);
button.Description = 'Toggle legend display';
addlistener(button, 'ValueChanged', @(h,e)legend('toggle'));
column1.add(button);
 
column2 = section2.addColumn();
imagefile = fullfile(matlabroot,'toolbox','matlab','icons','tool_colorbar.png');
jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(imagefile); % Java ImageIcon from file (inc. GIF)
%jIcon = javax.swing.ImageIcon(jIcon.getImage.getScaledInstance(24,24,jIcon.getImage.SCALE_SMOOTH))  % Resize icon to 24x24
icon = Icon(jIcon);
button = ToggleButton('Colorbar',icon);
button.Description = 'Toggle colorbar display';
button.ValueChangedFcn = @toggleColorbar;
column2.addEmptyControl();
column2.add(button);
column2.addEmptyControl();
function toggleColorbar(hAction,hEventData)
    if hAction.Selected
        colorbar;
    else
        colorbar('off');
    end
end

Checkboxes section (1 column 150px-wide), placed after the push-buttons section

section3 = Section('Checkboxes');
section3.CollapsePriority = 1;
hTab.add(section3, 2);
 
column3 = section3.addColumn('HorizontalAlignment','left', 'Width',150);
 
button = CheckBox('Axes borders', true);
button.ValueChangedFcn = @toggleAxes;
button.Description = 'Axes borders';
column3.add(button);
function toggleAxes(hAction,hEventData)
    if hAction.Selected
        set(gca,'Visible','on');
    else
        set(gca,'Visible','off');
    end
end
 
button = CheckBox('Log scaling', false);
button.addlistener('ValueChanged',@toggleLogY);
button.Description = 'Log scaling';
column3.add(button);
function toggleLogY(hCheckbox,hEventData)
    if hCheckbox.Value, type = 'log'; else, type = 'linear'; end
    set(gca, 'XScale',type, 'YScale',type, 'ZScale',type);
end
 
button = CheckBox('Inverted Y', false);
button.addlistener('ValueChanged',@toggleInvY);
button.Description = 'Invert Y axis';
column3.add(button);
function toggleInvY(hCheckbox,~)
    if hCheckbox.Value, type = 'reverse'; else, type = 'normal'; end
    set(gca, 'YDir',type);
end

Summary

Creating a custom app toolstrip requires careful planning of the tabs, sections, controls and their layout, as well as preparation of the icons, labels and callbacks. Once you start playing with the toolstrip API, you’ll see that it’s quite easy to understand and to use. I think MathWorks did a good job in general with this API, and it’s a pity that they did not make it public or official long ago (the MCOS API discussed above existed since 2014-2015; earlier versions existed at least as far back as 2011). Comparing the changes made in the API between R2018a and R2018b shows quite minor differences, which may possibly means that the API is now considered stable, and therefore that it might well be made public in some near-term future. Still, note that this API may well change in future releases (for example, naming of the control properties that I mentioned above). It works well in R2018b, as well as in the past several Matlab releases, but this could well change in the future, so beware.

In the following posts I will discuss advanced control customizations (icons, callbacks, collapsibility etc.), complex controls (drop-downs, pop-ups, lists, button groups, items gallery etc.) and low-level toolstrip creation and customization. As I said above, Matlab toolstrips are quite an extensive subject and so I plan to proceed slowly, with each post building on its predecessors. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you would like me to assist you in building a custom toolstrip or GUI for your Matlab program, please let me know.

We can add a Matlab toolstrip to 3 types of Matlab GUI windows:

1. To a Java-based Matlab figure (so-called “legacy” figures, created using GUIDE or the figure function)
2. To a container window of docked Java-based figures, typically called an “App” (marketing name) or “Tool Group” (internal technical name)
3. To a JavaScript/HTML-based Matlab figure (so called “web” figures, created using App Designer or the uifigure function)

Today I will show how to add a basic dynamic toolstrip to a ToolGroup (App, window type #2):

ToolGroup with clients and dynamic toolstrip

Figure containers (“Tool Groups”)

Most Matlab users are familiar with window types #1 and #3 (legacy and web-based figures), but type #2 may seem strange. In fact, it shouldn’t be: All the Matlab “Apps” and Desktop components use such a container of docked clients. For example, both the Matlab Editor and Desktop are containers of individual client windows (individual files in the Editor; Command Window, Workspace etc. in the desktop).

Similarly, when we dock figures, they dock as client windows into a container called “Figures” (this can be controlled programmatically: see my setFigDockGroup utility on the File Exchange). This is the basis for all Matlab “Apps”, as far as I am aware (some Apps may possibly use a different GUI container, after all there are ~100 Matlab Apps and I’m not familiar with all of them). Such Apps are basically stand-alone Tool Groups (client container windows) that contain one or more docked figures, a toolstrip, and a side-panel with controls (so-called “Data Browser”).

Note: MathWorks uses confusing terminology here, using the same term “App” for both MathWorks-created GUIs containers (that have toolstrips, Data Browser and docked figures) and also user-created utilities on the File Exchange (that do not have these). Unfortunately, MathWorks has chosen not [yet] to release to the general public its set of tools that enable creating true “Apps”, i.e. those that have a toolstrip, Data Browser and docked figures.

Today’s post will attempt to fill this gap, by showing how we can create user Apps that have a toolstrip and docked figures. I will ignore the Data Browser today, and will describe it in a future post. Since docking figures into a standalone user-created container is a solved problem (using my setFigDockGroup utility), this post will focus on adding a toolstrip to such a container.

A ToolGroup object (matlab.ui.internal.desktop.ToolGroup) is created either implicitly (by docking a figure into a group that has a new name), or explicitly (by invoking its constructor):

% Create a new non-visible empty App (Tool Group)
hToolGroup = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.ToolGroup('Toolstrip example on UndocumentedMatlab.com');

Some things only work properly after the app is displayed, so let’s display the ToolGroup (however, note that for improved performance it is better to do whatever customizations and GUI updates that you can before the app is made visible):

% Display the ToolGroup window
hToolGroup.open();

Basic empty ToolGroup (without toolstrip or clients)

An annoying quirk with ToolGroups is that they automatically close when their reference handle is deleted from Matlab memory. The specific behavior changes depending on the contents of the container and the Matlab release, but in general it’s safest to preserve the hToolGroup variable, to prevent the window from closing, when this variable goes out of scope, when the function (in which we create the ToolGroup) returns. There are many ways to persist this variable. Here’s one alternative, in which we persist it in itself (or rather, attached to its internal Java peer control):

% Store toolgroup reference handle so that app will stay in memory
jToolGroup = hToolGroup.Peer;
internal.setJavaCustomData(jToolGroup, hToolGroup);

internal.setJavaCustomData is an undocumented Matlab function that adds a new custom property to a Java reference handle. In our case, it adds a CustomData property to the jToolGroup handle and sets its value to the Matlab hToolGroup handle. The source code for internal.setJavaCustomData is available in %matlabroot%/toolbox/shared/controllib/general/+internal/setJavaCustomData.m and is very simple: it essentially uses the old schema-based schema.prop method for adding new properties to handles. Schema is an old deprecated mechanism that is mostly replaced by the newer MCOS (Matlab Class Object System), but for some specific cases such as this it’s still very useful (the standard addprop function can add new properties to Matlab GUI handles, but not to Java reference handles).

Finally, let’s discard the Data Browser side panel (I’ll discuss it in a separate future post):

% Discard the Data-browser left panel
hToolGroup.disableDataBrowser();

Adding a toolstrip to the ToolGroup

Now that we have the basic container ready, let’s add a toolstrip. To simplify matters in this introductory post (after all, I have still not described the internal packages and classes that make up a toolstrip), we’ll use some of the tabs used in the showcaseToolGroup example that I discussed in my previous post. You can see the relevant source code in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+desktop/*.m, in case you want to jump ahead and customize your own toolstrip tabs, groups and buttons. In the code snippet below, we first create an empty TabGroup, then add toolstrip tabs into it, and finally add this TabGroup into our ToolGroup using its addTabGroup(hTabGroup) method:

% Create a new tab group
%hTabGroup = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseBuildTabGroup('swing');
hTabGroup = matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.TabGroup();
hTab1 = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseBuildTab_Buttons('swing');
hTabGroup.add(hTab1);
%hTabGroup.add(matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseBuildTab_Gallery());
hTabGroup.add(matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseBuildTab_Layout('swing'));
 
% Select tab #1 (common)
hTabGroup.SelectedTab = hTab1;
 
% Add the tab group to the built-in toolstrip
hToolGroup.addTabGroup(hTabGroup);

We now have an “App” that has a toolstrip, but no clients (yet), and a hidden Data Browser side-panel:

Now let’s add some clients (docked figures):

Adding clients (docked figures) to the ToolGroup

There are two easy variants for adding docked figures in a ToolGroup: The easiest is to use the ToolGroup’s addFigure(hFigure) method:

% Create a figure and dock it into the tool-group
hFig1 = figure('Name','3D');
surf(peaks);
hToolGroup.addFigure(hFig1);

The second variant enables to dock a figure that has a specific set of toolstrip tabs attached to it. These tabs will only display in the toolstrip when that particular figure has focus. We do this by creating a new TabGroup (just as we have done above), and then add the figure and TabGroup to the container using the ToolGroup’s addClientTabGroup(hFigure,hTabGroup) method:

% Create the 2nd figure
hFig2 = figure('Name','2D');
plot(rand(5)); drawnow
 
% Add a few tabs that are only relevant to this specific figure
hTabGroup2 = matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.TabGroup();
hTab2 = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseBuildTab_Selections();
hTabGroup2.add(hTab2);
hTabGroup2.add(matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseBuildTab_EditValue());
 
% Add the figure and tabs to the ToolGroup
hToolGroup.addClientTabGroup(hFig2, hTabGroup2);

ToolGroup with clients and dynamic toolstrip

In this example, the “Selection” and “Values” toolstrip tabs only appear when the 2nd figure (“2D”) has focus. A similar behavior exists in the Matlab Desktop and Editor, where some tabs are only shown when certain clients have focus.

Removing the View tab

Note that the “View” toolstrip tab (which enables setting the appearance of the docked figures: layout, tab positions (top/bottom/left/right), ordering etc.) is automatically added to the toolstrip and always appears last. We can remove this View tab using the ToolGroup’s hideViewTab() method. The tab will not immediately be removed, only when the toolstrip is repainted, for example, when we switch focus between the docked figures:

hToolGroup.hideViewTab;  % toolstrip View tab is still visible at this point
figure(hFig1);  % change focus to hFig1 - toolstrip is repainted without View tab

Conclusion

It’s relatively easy to dock figures into a standalone “App” window that has a custom toolstrip, which can even be dynamically modified based on the figure which is currently in focus. Naturally, this has little benefit if we cannot customize the toolstrip components: labels, icons, control type, grouping and most importantly – callbacks. This topic deserves a dedicated post, which I plan to be the next in this miniseries. Stay tuned – hopefully the next post will not take me as long to publish as this post (I was quite busy recently)…

My plan is to start the miniseries with a discussion of the built-in showcase examples, followed by a post on the built-in classes that make up the toolstrip building-blocks. Finally, I’ll describe how toolstrips can be added to figures, not just in client/tool groups.

Matlab’s internal showcase examples

I start the discussion with a description of built-in examples for the toolstrip functionality, located in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+desktop/. The most important of these are showcaseToolGroup.m and showcaseMPCDesigner.m, both of which use Java-based (Swing) containers and controls. Readers who wish to integrate toolstrips into their app immediately, without waiting for my followup posts in this series, are welcome to dig into the examples’ source-code and replicate it in their programs:

1. showcaseToolGroup

h = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseToolGroup

2. showcaseMPCDesigner

>> h = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseMPCDesigner
 
h =
  showcaseMPCDesigner with properties:
 
    ToolGroup: [1×1 matlab.ui.internal.desktop.ToolGroup]
       Dialog: [1×1 toolpack.component.TSTearOffPopup]
      Figure1: [1×1 Figure]
      Figure2: [1×1 Figure]

3. showcaseHTML and showcaseCEF

In addition to these showcase examples, the folder also contains a showcaseHTML.m and showcaseCEF.m files, that are supposed to showcase the toolstrip functionality in JavaScript-based containers (browser webpage and uifigure apps, respectively). Unfortunately, on my system running these classes displays blank, although the toolstrip is indeed created, as seen below (if you find out how to make these classes work, please let me know):

>> h = matlab.ui.internal.desktop.showcaseHTML
building toolstrip hierarchy...
rendering toolstrip...
 
h = 
  Toolstrip with properties:
 
               SelectedTab: [1×1 matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.Tab]
              DisplayState: 'expanded'
    DisplayStateChangedFcn: @PropertyChangedCallback
                       Tag: 'toolstrip'
 
>> hs = struct(h)
Warning: Calling STRUCT on an object prevents the object from hiding its implementation details and should thus be avoided.
Use DISP or DISPLAY to see the visible public details of an object. See 'help struct' for more information.
(Type "warning off MATLAB:structOnObject" to suppress this warning.)
 
hs = 
  struct with fields:
 
                         SelectedTab: [1×1 matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.Tab]
                        DisplayState: 'expanded'
              DisplayStateChangedFcn: @PropertyChangedCallback
                 DisplayStatePrivate: 'expanded'
                        QABIdPrivate: '2741bf89'
               QuickAccessBarPrivate: [1×1 matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.impl.QuickAccessBar]
       DisplayStateChangedFcnPrivate: @PropertyChangedCallback
         SelectedTabChangedListeners: [1×1 event.listener]
                                 Tag: 'toolstrip'
                                Type: 'Toolstrip'
                          TagPrivate: 'toolstrip'
    WidgetPropertyMap_FromMCOSToPeer: [3×1 containers.Map]
    WidgetPropertyMap_FromPeerToMCOS: [3×1 containers.Map]
                              Parent: [0×0 matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.base.Node]
                            Children: [1×1 matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.TabGroup]
                             Parent_: []
                           Children_: [1×1 matlab.ui.internal.toolstrip.TabGroup]
                                Peer: [1×1 com.mathworks.peermodel.impl.PeerNodeImpl]
                   PropertySetSource: [1 java.util.HashMap]
                    PeerModelChannel: '/ToolstripShowcaseChannel'
                   PeerEventListener: [1×1 handle.listener]
                 PropertySetListener: [1×1 handle.listener]
 
>> hs.Peer
ans =
PeerNodeImpl{id='4a1e4b08', type='Toolstrip', properties={displayState=expanded, hostId=ToolStripShowcaseDIV, tag=toolstrip, QABId=2741bf89}, parent=878b0e2b, children=[
    PeerNodeImpl{id='5bb9632c', type='TabGroup', properties={QAGroupId=ea9b628c, tag=, selectedTab=f90db10c}, parent=4a1e4b08, children=[
        PeerNodeImpl{id='f90db10c', type='Tab', properties={mnemonic=, tag=tab_buttons, title=BUTTONS}, parent=5bb9632c, children=[
            PeerNodeImpl{id='1ccc9246', type='Section', properties={collapsePriority=0.0, mnemonic=, tag=sec_push, title=PUSH BUTTON}, parent=f90db10c, children=[
                PeerNodeImpl{id='8323f06e', type='Column', properties={horizontalAlignment=left, width=0.0, tag=}, parent=1ccc9246, children=[
                    PeerNodeImpl{id='af368d7b', type='PushButton', properties={textOverride=, descriptionOverride=, mnemonic=, actionId=230d471b, iconOverride=, tag=pushV, iconPathOverride=}, parent=8323f06e, children=[]}]}
                PeerNodeImpl{id='a557a712', type='Column', properties={horizontalAlignment=left, width=0.0, tag=}, parent=1ccc9246, children=[
                    PeerNodeImpl{id='f0d6a9fc', type='EmptyControl', properties={tag=}, parent=a557a712, children=[]}
                    PeerNodeImpl{id='74bc4cd2', type='PushButton', properties={textOverride=, descriptionOverride=, mnemonic=, actionId=12d6a26a, iconOverride=, tag=pushH, iconPathOverride=}, parent=a557a712, children=[]}
                    PeerNodeImpl{id='bcb5a9d0', type='EmptyControl', properties={tag=}, parent=a557a712, children=[]}]}]}
            PeerNodeImpl{id='0e515319', type='Section', properties={collapsePriority=0.0, mnemonic=, tag=sec_dropdown, title=DROP DOWN BUTTON}, parent=f90db10c, children=[
                PeerNodeImpl{id='80482225', type='Column', properties={horizontalAlignment=left, width=0.0, tag=}, parent=0e515319, children=[
                    PeerNodeImpl{id='469f469a', type='DropDownButton', properties={textOverride=, descriptionOverride=, mnemonic=, actionId=c6ca7335, iconOverride=, tag=dropdownV, iconPathOverride=}, parent=80482225, children=[]}]}
                ...

Note: showcaseCEF has been removed in 2018, but is available in older Matlab releases.

Levels of toolstrip encapsulation

Matlab currently has several levels of encapsulation for toolstrip components:

• Top-level m-file classes for showcasing the toolstrip functionality and creating toolstrips in Java-based containers and web-based apps – these are located in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+desktop/
• Mid-level m-file classes that contain the toolstrip building blocks (tabs, sections, controls) – these are located in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/toolstrip/+matlab/+ui/+internal/+toolstrip/
• Low-level Java classes that implement the underlying user-interface for Java-based UI – these are located in %matlabroot%/java/jar/toolstrip.jar. I discussed this briefly in a post few years ago.

The top- and mid-level m-file classes are provided with full source code that is quite well-documented internally (as m-file source-code comments). However, note that it is not officially documented or supported (i.e., semi-documented in this blog’s parlance).

The low-level Java classes on the other hand are compiled without available source code – we can inspect these classes (e.g., using uiinspect or checkClass), but we cannot see their original source-code. Luckily, the higher-level m-file classes provide us with plenty of hints and usage examples that we could use to tailor the appearance, functionality and integration of toolstrip components into our app.

Robyn Jackey’s Widgets Toolbox

Users who hesitate to mess around with the built-in toolstrip functionality may find interest in MathWorker Robyn Jackey’s Toolstrip look-alike, which is part of his open-source Widgets Toolbox on the Matlab File Exchange. Unlike other parts of Robyn’s toolbox, which use undocumented functionality, his Toolstrip class seems to use documented components (panels, uicontrols etc.), with just a small reliance on undocumented functionality (matlab.ui.* for example). This has a fair chance to continue working well into future releases, even if Matlab’s built-in toolstrip functionality changes:

Strong caution

Over the years, Matlab’s internal toolstrip interface has changed somewhat, but not dramatically. This could change at any time, since the toolstrip uses deeply undocumented functionality. What I will demonstrate over the next few posts might stop working in R2019a, or in R2025b – nobody really knows, perhaps not even MathWorks at this stage. Something that we do know for a fact is that Matlab is slowly transitioning away from Java-based user interfaces to web-based (HTML/JavaScript/CSS) interfaces, and this could have a drastic effect on the toolstrip functionality/API. It seems reasonable to assume that even if MathWorks would one day open up the toolstrip functionality, this would only be for the new web-based uifigure apps (not legacy Java-based figures), and might well have a different API than the one that I’ll discuss in this miniseries. Still, users could use the unofficial/undocumented information that I present here in their own Java figures today and quite possibly also in near-term upcoming releases.

Despite the many unknowns regarding future supportability/roadmap of the built-in toolstrip API, I believe that my readers are smart enough to decide for themselves whether they want to take the associated risks to improve their Matlab programs today, or wait until a documented API will possibly be provided sometime in the future. The choice is yours, as it always is when using undocumented tips from my blog.

With this warning stated, let’s start having fun with Matlab’s built-in toolstrip!

Custom shortcut controls

Today’s article will focus on the new toolstrip interface of Matlab release R2012b and later; adaptation of the code to R2012a and earlier is relatively easy (in fact, simpler than the toolstrip-based code below).

Displaying the Shortcuts panel

Before we begin to modify shortcuts in the Toolstrip’s shortcuts menu, we need to ensure that the Shortcuts panel is visible and active (in current focus), otherwise our customizations will be ignored or cause an error. There is probably a more direct way of doing this, but a simple way that I found was to edit the current Desktop’s layout to include a directive to display the Shortcuts tab, and then load that layout:

jDesktop = com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.getInstance;
hMainFrame = com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.getInstance.getMainFrame;
jToolstrip = hMainFrame.getToolstrip;
isOk = jToolstrip.setCurrentTab('shortcuts');
if ~isOk  % i.e., Shortcuts tab is NOT displayed
    % Save the current Desktop layout
    jDesktop.saveLayout('Yair');  pause(0.15);
 
    % Update the layout file to display the Shortcuts tab
    filename = fullfile(prefdir, 'YairMATLABLayout.xml');
    fid = fopen(filename, 'rt');
    txt = fread(fid, '*char')';
    fclose(fid);
    txt = regexprep(txt,'(ShowShortcutsTab=)"[^"]*"','');
    txt = regexprep(txt,'(<Layout [^>]*)>','$1 ShowShortcutsTab="yes">');
    fid = fopen(filename, 'wt');
    fwrite(fid,txt);
    fclose(fid);
 
    % Load the modified layout
    jDesktop.restoreLayout('Yair');  pause(0.15);
 
    % The shortcuts tab should now be visible, so transfer focus to that tab
    jToolstrip.setCurrentTab('shortcuts');
end

Custom controls

As I explained in last week’s post, we can use scUtils.addShortcutToBottom to add a simple push-button shortcut to the relevant category panel within the Shortcuts toolstrip tab. To add custom controls, we can simply add the controls to the relevant shortcut category panel container (a com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSPanel object). The standard shortcuts are typically placed in the Shortcuts tab’s second TSPanel (“general”), and other categories have TSPanels of their own.

Now here’s the tricky part about TSPanels: we cannot directly add components to the sectino panel (that would be too easy…): the section panels are composed of an array of internal TSPanels, and we need to add the new controls to those internal panels. However, these panels only contain 3 empty slots. If we try to add more than 3 components, the 4th+ component(s) will simply not be displayed. In such cases, we need to create a new TSPanel to display the extra components.

Here then is some sample code to add a combo-box (drop-down) control:

% First, get the last internal TSPanel within the Shortcuts tab's "general" section panel
% Note: jToolstrip was defined in the previous section above
jShortcutsTab = jToolstrip.getModel.get('shortcuts').getComponent;
jSectionPanel = jShortcutsTab.getSectionComponent(1).getSection.getComponent;  % the TSPanel object "general"
jContainer = jSectionPanel.getComponent(jSectionPanel.getComponentCount-1);
 
% If the last internal TSPanel is full, then prepare a new internal TSPanel next to it
if jContainer.getComponentCount >= 3
    % Create a new empty TSPanel and add it to the right of the last internal TSPanel
    jContainer = com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSPanel;
    jContainer.setPreferredSize(java.awt.Dimension(100,72));
    jSectionPanel.add(jContainer);
    jSectionPanel.repaint();
    jSectionPanel.revalidate();
end
 
% Create the new control with a custom tooltip and callback function
optionStrings = {'Project A', 'Project B', 'Project C'};
jCombo = com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSComboBox(optionStrings);
jCombo = handle(javaObjectEDT(jCombo), 'callbackproperties'));
set(jCombo, 'ActionPerformedCallback', @myCallbackFunction);
jCombo.setToolTipText('Select the requested project');
 
% Now add the new control to the internal TSPanel
jContainer.add(jCombo);
jContainer.repaint();
jContainer.revalidate();

Custom shortcut controls

Matlab’s internal com.mathworks.toolstrip.components package contains many embeddable controls, including the following (I emphasized those that I think are most useful within the context of the Shortcuts panel): TSButton, TSCheckBox, TSComboBox, TSDropDownButton (a custom combo-box component), TSFormattedTextField, TSLabel, TSList, TSRadioButton, TSScrollPane, TSSlider, TSSpinner, TSSplitButton, TSTextArea, TSTextField, and TSToggleButton. These controls are in most cases simple wrappers of the corresponding Java Swing controls. For example, TSSpinner extends the standard Swing JSpinner control. In some cases, the controls are more complex: for example, the TSSplitButton is similar to Matlab’s uisplittool control.

Toolstrip controls

In fact, these controls can be used even outside the toolstrip, embedded directly in our Matlab figure GUI, using the javacomponent function. For example:

dataModel = javax.swing.SpinnerNumberModel(125, 15, 225, 0.5);  % defaultValue, minValue, maxValue, stepSize
jSpinner = com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSSpinner(dataModel);
jSpinner = handle(javaObjectEDT(jSpinner), 'CallbackProperties');
[hjSpinner, hContainer] = javacomponent(jSpinner, [10,10,60,20], gcf);

You can find additional interesting components within the %matlabroot%/java/jar/toolstrip.jar file, which can be opened in any zip file utility or Java IDE. In fact, whatever controls that you see Matlab uses in its Desktop toolstrip (including galleries etc.) can be replicated in custom tabs, sections and panels of our own design.

Matlab Desktop’s interactive GUI only enables creating simple push-button shortcuts having string callbacks (that are eval‘ed in run-time). Using the undocumented programmatic interface that I just showed, we can include more sophisticated controls, as well as customize those controls in ways that are impossible via the programmatic GUI: add tooltips, set non-string (function-handle) callbacks, enable/disable controls, modify icons in run-time etc.

For example (intentionally showing two separate ways of setting the component properties):

% Toggle-button
jTB = handle(javaObjectEDT(com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSToggleButton('Toggle button')), 'CallbackProperties')
jTB.setSelected(true)
jTB.setToolTipText('toggle me!')
jTB.ActionPerformedCallback = @(h,e)doSomething();
jContainer.add(jTB);
 
% Check-box
jCB = handle(javaObjectEDT(com.mathworks.toolstrip.components.TSCheckBox('selected !')), 'CallbackProperties');
set(jCB, 'Selected', true, 'ToolTipText','Please select me!', 'ActionPerformedCallback',{@myCallbackFunction,extraData});
jContainer.add(jCB);

(resulting in the screenshot at the top of this post)

Important note: none of these customizations is saved to file. Therefore, they need to be redone programmatically for each separate Matlab session. You can easily do that by calling the relevant code in your startup.m file.

If you wish me to assist with any customization of the Desktop shortcuts, or any other Matlab aspect, then contact me for a short consultancy.

Happy New Year everybody!

Designer Tim Smith (designbytimsmith.com), is apparently responsible for many of the sleek UI designs, working with MathWorks’ internal User Experience (UX) team. Tim’s website showcases his work, philosophy, and design process for Matlab’s AppDesigner, Desktop toolstrip, Matlab Mobile, and Matlab on the Web.

I highly recommend reading what Tim has to say about these designs, as well as other designs that he created for other clients. Impressive work indeed.

Formerly a MathWorks visual designer, Tim left MathWorks in 2012 to join PayPal, and currently works at Google. designbytimsmith.com has no contact page, and Tim is apparently very secretive about his email address, which is a bit odd for someone who was the design lead for Google’s new Inbox product. Anyway, you can contact him via his LinkedIn profile or Google+ page.

If you want to get a feel for what Matlab might look like down the road, simply head over to Tim’s website.

Enjoy!

Various Tim Smith designs for AppDesigner's dial widget

Removing extra files

Since my complaint last year, I see that some (not all) of the Japanese-language files have been removed from the installation. This is good, although some large Japanese files remain (e.g., the installation guide PDF and many help files) which a smart installer (or even better – the JNLP downloader) might know to ignore based on my computer’s locale.

In any case, what has been added to my dislike, are files in Chinese, specifically the helpsearch_zh_CN folder in %matlabroot%/help/ and %matlabroot%/help/matlab/, each weighing a hefty 14MB. I really hate giving Matlab the adjective of “bloatware”, but its releases keep getting larger and large (R2012b weighs over 800MB!) and I feel that a lot of it, like these Chinese files, could be avoided with only a little bit of extra care on the part of MathWorks. Not all computers have 100GB of free disk space, you know…

Modifying some Matlab m-files

I have several standard changes that I often make to Matlab files. These changes are naturally not propagated when installing a new Matlab release. I can understand this and I’m not complaining. I just need to go over the list of functions and re-modify them:

1. profview and matlab-report-styles.css (both in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/codetools/) – I’ll post a separate article about this next week, together with some additional undocumented profiling options that I did not cover in my previous article on this topic.
2. uitree, uitab and other semi-documented functions (mostly in %matlabroot%/toolbox/matlab/uitools/) such as the useful hgfeval – add a % character at the beginning of line #3, in order to make the help section become visible during help or doc.

Preferences, workspace

This is one step that I do not need to do when installing on a machine having a previous Matlab installation. The installer is smart enough to detect that installation and copy its preference files to the new installation. However, updating the default preferences is indeed necessary for a fresh install, and since I was asked about this I thought to include this here.

So here are the changes that I normally make to the default preferences:

1. General – Confirmation Dialogs – uncheck several confirmations
2. General – Java Heap Memory – increase to 256 or 512MB
3. Keyboard – check the <Tab key narrows completion> option (most useful for the desktop – see related article)
4. Fonts – Monospaced 10pt => Courier New 8pt (the Monospace font is often displayed incorrectly, as a proportional rather than fixed-width font. Using Courier solves this problem. 8pt gives me more real-estate and still looks good on my display)
5. Colors – Programming Tools – check all the options except <Show lines between sections>
6. Command Window – Text display: long g compact; uncheck <Show getting started msg>; scroll buffer: 5K=>25K (will MathWorks ever increase this hard-coded limit?!)
7. Editor – Most recently used (MRU): 4=>12 (until recently Matlab only supported 9, hurray)
8. Editor – Display – check all options (on some older releases the <Show lines between sections> was here and needed to be unchecked; this option is now in Colors – programming Tools); Show line at 75 => 120 columns
9. Editor – Tab – check all options
10. Editor – Language – Max column width: 75 => 120; Indent all functions (not just nested)
11. Editor – Code Folding – check all options in the <Enable> column; check most options in the <Fold Initially> column
12. Editor – Autosave – Append file name with asv => ~
13. GUIDE – uncheck all options except <Show file extension in window title>

And in the Workspace panel, only show the Name, Value, Bytes and Class columns (right-click the column headers to select).

A few words about R2012b

The new R2012b release has received the version ID of 8.0. Despite my speculations in 2010 (here and here) that Matlab 8.0 will bring along the promise of the much-awaited HG2, it turns out that I was incorrect. The new release still does not incorporate HG2. We can see a gradual progression in the work by starting Matlab with the “-hgVersion 2” switch that I described there, but this has still not made it into the mainstream figure window. Hopefully we will get HG2 sometime next year.

R2012b does include a major facelift to the Desktop and Editor, using the new MS-Office-like toolstrip that I exposed here last year. Some people hate toolstrips, some love them, but whatever your personal preference is, Matlab does not have an option to switch back to the non-toolstripped appearance, so for good or worse we’re stuck with the new look. The new toolstrip is currently shown only in the Desktop and related tools, not in figure windows (perhaps in anticipation for HG2? I don’t know). Which reminds me that it’s really about time for me to write a detailed technical article explaining how to add a toolstrip to figure windows.

Another thing you’ll notice in the new release is a facelift to the documentation and the Matlab browser (tabs, finally!), along with a Quick Access Bar (QAB) and a Win7-like current-folder combo-box control.

Matlab's new look (click to zoom)

One specific new features that readers of this blog (I, for one) will probably bless, is the ability to create a custom user Java static classpath and librarypath files, that will override and extend Matlab’s auto-generated classpath.txt and librarypath.txt files. The new custom files should be called javaclasspath.txt, javalibrarypath.txt and be placed in your prefdir or startup folder (the latter is useful for deployed applications). This finally puts an end to the need to update these files for each Matlab release, along with the ensuing compatibility problems that arose from incompatible set of Matlab JAR files. This solves a very painful operational issue for me and I’m sure that also for others.

Another Java-related improvement is the ability to get the underlying Java exception object in the catch part of a try-catch block. Not a biggie for me, but certainly a nice-to-have.

Sadly, if you’re looking for really important engine upgrades, then I haven’t found any that really caught my eye in the release notes. Maybe next year…

Note that on your system you may be unaffected by some or all of the issues below. All these issues have occurred for the past several Matlab installations, and are NOT unique to the new R2001b:

Bootstrap loader

Matlab uses a simple download_agent.jnlp file as its installer bootstrap loader. This is a very small (2KB) XML file that tells your Operating System’s Java runtime engine, which automatically runs JNLP files, which JAR files to download (yes, the basic loader is Java-based).

The hickup I encounter four times a year (two pre-releases and two production releases) is that at least on my system, FireFox downloads the file not as download_agent.jnlp but as download_agent. I cannot then run this file, since it has no file extension. Adding the .jnlp extension manually solves this issue.

Installer

Double-clicking the JNLP file then runs the JNLP using the OS’s JRE. After downloading the specified JARs, com.mathworks.agent.AgentGUI is invoked with a specified URL of another XML file. This second XML file actually contains the list of installer application file URL and some zip files that contain the actually installable files.

The hickup here is that the installer automatically downloads dozens of MB of Japanese-related materials (documentation, translation files etc.) that are irrelevant to me (as well as for most Matlab users). I have nothing against Japanese in general, I just hate my time, bandwidth and disk space being wasted in vain. I can’t do much regarding the first two, but at least I can delete the Japanese installer files after they have been downloaded: install_guide_ja_JP.pdf, archives/MATLAB713_doc_ja.zip, help/ja_JP etc.

Pre-release

Matlab’s installer is smart enough to automatically detect an existing pre-release installation of Matlab, and polite enough to ask me whether to overwrite that location or to install Matlab into a new folder. I often choose the later since I make changes to system files and I do not want them to be overwritten automatically. Unfortunately, the Matlab installer may be too smart: It installs Matlab onto the new folder but prevents running the old pre-release in parallel. In effect, it uninstalled my pre-release without physically removing the files. So while I can still see my modified files in the pre-release folders, I can no longer see them in action. This is a real shame.

A more pressing problem is that the new installation keeps the old Matlab path (which points to the pre-release folders), rather than to the new production folders. This can easily be fixed using pathtool or the main menu’s File / Set path…, but I am guessing that most users would not have easily noticed this issue.

Java

Matlab’s installer copies many user-generated preference files, but unfortunately not some files that are critical to using Java in Matlab, namely librarypath.txt and classpath.txt. I needed to manually copy my changes from the previous version onto the new version’s files.

You could say that this proves (yet again) the need to place librarypath.txt and classpath.txt in a user folder rather than modifying the system files. However, in some cases, particularly when, as in my case, there are numerous start-up folders for different projects, it is often easier and simpler to modify the central system files rather than using and maintaining numerous user copies.

A related issue is the installer’s failure to generate (and copy the contents) of the %matlabroot%/java/patch folder. This is a very important folder for java users in Matlab, since it is automatically included in Matlab’s static classpath (the aforementioned classpath.txt) and any class file placed in this folder will therefore be automatically recognized and available in all Matlab sessions without the need for calling javaaddpath (which has some serious drawbacks). I have a set of Java classes that I always use and the path folder is the perfect place for them. I just need to remember to copy this folder after each installation…

These minor woes behind us, we can start enjoying the new Matlab release. Here’s a candy from the new version: It is a built-in demo of what may be Matlab’s upcoming GUI capabilities, in this case a Toolstrip. I will explore it in detail in some later post:

>> com.mathworks.xwidgets.desktopexamples.ToolstripShowCase.main('')

Matlab's new Toolstrip (click to zoom)