Hi Yair,

I have a basic question like as we have Java platform where people use to develop tools, again what is the advantage we are getting by developing tools in MATLAB with/without Java concepts.
I guess and aggrie’s there will be benefits by using MATLAB platform instead of JAVA for tool developments(GUI).
Will you suggest me what are the benefits we are getting by developing tools in MATLAB using JAVA concepts.

Thank you for your time,

Regards,
Sai.

@Sai – since you are already familiar with Java, it makes a lot of sense to keep your GUI in Java, but to develop the core algorithms in Matlab. Matlab is much better than Java for rapidly developing computational algorithms. Using Matlab will significantly decrease your development cycle times, and increase your code’s validity/accuracy. After being used to the power and flexibility of Java GUI you will be disappointed at the much more limited pure-Matlab GUI capabilities. But as I said, if you use Java GUI then you can benefit from both worlds.

Hi Yair,

Thank you very much for your time and information.

Regards,
Sainath M.

Hi Yan,

In MATLAB we can create our GUI by using GUIDE tool or by manual scripting(i.e., on figure) with or without JAVA concepts. What is the main difference between these two procedures:
If so please suggest me which one is flexible with more functionalities for developing the GUI tool.

Thank You for your time,

Regards,
Sai.

@Sai – GUIDE is easier to set-up and design, but harder to maintain than creating a pure GUI from scratch. GUIDE figures also have some [usually small] performance overheads compared to pure GUIs. Also, GUIDE makes it a bit more difficult to integrate Java components in the Matlab figure, although this can of course be overcome.

Both of these routes (GUIDE and manual GUI programming) have their uses, and the ultimate decision depends on what you want your GUI to look like and how you wish it to behave (in other words, your exact requirements).

If you would like my consulting help for your specific project, please contact me offline using the email link at the top right of this page (altmany at gmail dot com).

Thank You very much Yair for your message and concern, I will let you know if I need any help.

I purchased!!
I’m not sure this is the right place to say this, but, I began to read the first chapter of the book and saw ‘java.lang.Thread’ and was excited. But it was saddening to see no more explanation about it because that made me wonder if it is possible to write multithreaded m-file using Java interface. If Matlab allows m-file to only use java objects, not allowing java object to use m-files, then it might not be possible. (Note: I have no experience of Java.)
Anyway, a great purchase!!
Thanks for the work.

@ParangBoo – Matlab is indeed single-threaded in its computational engine, but you can launch and use Java threads as long as they don’t access the main Matlab thread. I explain some more about this in section 3.2. If you need to access the Matlab engine and/or data, consider using Matlab timers instead of Java threads.

As to the other part of your question, accessing Matlab from within Java is the topic of the entire chapter 9. If you just need to access the m-file (i.e., the physical source-code text file) rather than Matlab code/data, then you can easily do this from within Java using Java’s extensive I/O capabilities.

@ParangBoo, if you’re interested in multithreading in Matlab and have C++ experience, you can fall back on mex files for this. ^[37] the ^[38] for simpler C++ multithreading although it is ^[39]. More recent versions of Theron are even easier to setup and soon you’ll be able to use C++11’s std::thread instead of boost::thread which will simplify things a lot as well.

First of all. Congratulation on your effort and the book. It is very useful.

I read through a few chapters and could not find any examples on the following.

How to instantiate JFrame and use Java Swing without javacomponent? I can do this with non-GUI Java package.

I intent to try using standard Swing, JIDE and other Java package via Matlab command-line without the needs for Matlab figure containers.

Thank you.

You also mentioned that JIDE docs refer to the latest JIDE version, but Matlab uses an older version,(com.jidesoft.utils.Lm.getProductVersion()) for code-freeze configuration reasons.

Is it possible to add JIDE version of my choice to co-exist with Matlab pre-installed version, and force my own function to call/use my specific JIDE version?

In this way, I will have more control over the JIDE versions, just in case the Mathworks decide to change something later.

Thank you.

@Krisada – you can use a different JIDE release with Matlab, but this has been ^[40] to cause problems with Matlab, so use the procedure with extreme care. Naturally, it depends on how far away your selected JIDE release is from Matlab’s.

As for your other question, you can use the JFrame‘s show() method to display the frame window. You should really consult a good Java Swing reference if you’re planning to go down this route, because your question tells me that you don’t have much experience in this. Also keep in mind that you will have much difficulty if you ever wish to integrate Matlab controls/axes in such a pure-Java container.

Well, I have been deploying codes through Matlab Java Builder for my lab project. My applications consist of deploying a 3D simulation(a robot simulation). Although, Matlab Java Builder JA helps me deploy the code but the animation for any simulation could not be achieved through Java builder. I believe that JMI wrapper can help me achieve in remote accessing MATLAB through client. Will this require to install MATLAB at the client end..?

I would like to buy this book for implementing the above stated purpose. I would be grateful if you could provide me some tutorials for remote accessing Matlab through Java. So, that I can convince by boss to invest in the book.

Thank you.

@Neha – you’re joking right? you need to invest hours of your time and mine in order to convince your manager to buy a relevant book at $50? are you so low-paid that your time is not worth this much? I am certainly not and the few dollars in royalties that I would get from your book copy is not a very large incentive for me to give you hours-worth of free consulting, so sorry.

Hello Yair!!
I am just entering in Matlab “world”…i aim to translate a Java code to Matlab code..i am not a java developer, i am just an user of a Java based application…I think that, starting from ZERO, i could have more possibility to learn to manage a Matlab code, better than a Java one…without needing to ask all time to our java developer to make the modification i need…just make it my own. But the first step, traslate the java source code into matlab…may be the most difficult i suppose. Your book called my attention…do You think it would be useful for my purpose? THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!! Marco

@Marco – you might be better served by reading an introduction-to-Matlab book.

Hi Yair,
sir is there any way to introduced auto-complete feature just like in google search bar. And i had one standalone application created in matlab i want to create license for that is there any way to do same. Please kindly suggest me any way.

@Akash – Auto-complete lists are discussed in page 296 of my book. You can also code such a feature yourself, if you wish.

Re licensing, you may find my article on ^[41] helpful.

Hi Yair,
Sir is there any way to run rss feeds on matlab gui

@Akash – you can ^[42] in your GUI, pointing the displayed webpage to an RSS feed reader.

Is it possible to call Java code from matlab to do some fancy parallel distributed database work?

Matlab database handing is too slow. I also hate that long long sql in Matlab. I want to use JAVA for example Hadoop to do the database work and transfer it back to the Matlab.

I would love to consider buy the book!! Thanks!!

@Hongbo – yes, it is possible to do this and the book shows how. It even has a large section showing how to directly call an external Database from Matlab using JDBC.

Hi Yair,

I’ve read the book but I’m not able to modify the icon of uigetfile.

I use for the “figure”:

javaFrame = get(hObject,'JavaFrame');
javaFrame.setFigureIcon(javax.swing.ImageIcon(im2java(imread('icon.jpg'))));

How can I modify the uigetfile icon?

Best Regards,
Aim

@Aim – I am not sure that doing this is in accordance with the Matlab end-user license, so I will not be able to help you here.

Hello sir i want to run timer function in matlab :
m create timer in following way but it not properly executed

handles.t = timer('TimerFcn',{@test_Callback, handles},'Period',1,'ExecutionMode','fixedRate');
function test_Callback(handles)

my main concern is test_Callback uses all variables aur valuse define in main program for which i pass handles but it can’t work
please suggest me some way to do it

@Akash – read ^[43]

Sir,
I would like to know that if I create a GUI using JAVA then on the buttons can the MATLAB code be implemented?
Thank you

@Gaurav – If you create your GUI in pure Java then you’ll need to use the Matlab Builder for Java toolbox to connect your GUI to Matlab code.

I’m getting this error. Can anyone please explain why is this happening….?

Error using .^
Not enough input arguments.

Thank you for all of your posts and your book. Great Stuff!!

Hi Yair,
I’ve been interested in learning the ins and outs of integrating java into my gui’s for a while now. This book looks great but is the content still supported by more recent matlab versions?

@Trevor – yes it is, excluding a few quirks here and there. The vast majority of the contents still remains relevant to this day.

Hello Yair,

Any plans to release a new edition of the book “Undocumented Secrets of MATLAB-Java Programming”?

Regards,
Uche

@Uche – there are no plans to update the book in the near future. The vast majority of the book remains valid to this very day.

I’m a student from China,now i want to use Matlab’s function library in java project, ask u a question, can i get a matlab library where i can use all the matlab’s functions outside matlab without using “matlab builder for ja”;by the way ,can i read your book? do u have ebook? i am astudent ,i sorry to tell u that i have not enough money to pay for the really book.

You can use JNI or JMI to access Matlab from Java, but you need to have Matlab installed and running in order to do that – you cannot use the Matlab libraries directly without Matlab running unless you use the Java Builder product (which uses the MCR).

As for an ebook – you can get it from the same place that you get the print book. You can ask your university department library to order a copy of the book.