Close uialert figure by button click - matlab

Based on a MATLAB example, I added a close command in order to close the uifigure after pressing the OK button. However, in its current state the figure is closed automatically, rather than on the button click. How can I alter the below to have the figure close on click?
Code:
fig = uifigure;
message = {'Fire hazard!','Consider reducing temperature.'};
uialert(fig,message,'Warning',...
'Icon','warning');
close(fig)

You should use a callback in uialert:
fig = uifigure;
message = {'Fire hazard!','Consider reducing temperature.'};
uialert(fig, message, 'Warning', 'Icon', 'warning', ...
'CloseFcn', #(~, ~)close(fig)); % This will be executed after Ok is pressed
The syntax # is the Matlab way to define an anonymous function (Matlab calls these function handles, other languages usually call these lambdas). It allows passing functions as parameters to other functions. If your anonymous function needs to receive parameters, the syntax #(p1, p2, p3) can be used.
In the case of callbacks for uifigures, the callbacks always expect two parameters: fig and event. fig is the figure where the event happened, event is a structure describing the event. In the case above, since all you want to do is close the figure (and you already know which figure you want to close), you can ignore both parameters. The syntax in Matlab to tell that you are receiving a parameter that you purposefully are ignoring is by using a tilde (~) in the position of the parameter. This can be used anywhere actually, including in the definition of normal functions or when unpacking the return value. For example:
[U,~,V] = svd(A)
tells that you are not interested in the singular values of your SVD, only in left and right singular vectors.
You can read more about function handles in the Matlab documentation.

Related

How to add and delete items on MATLAB Gui

I'm a new MATLAB GUI user. I'm trying to add various number of items, let's say static texts on the GUI. The number and the position of items will be calculated according to input.
A = uicontrol('Style','pushbutton','Position',[0,0,50,50])
This code adds a pushbutton but I don't know how to use this button after creating that in this way. Does this A have its own handles or hObject? How can I make MATLAB display('someone pressed the button') when I clicked on the button?
Thanks in advance.
A is a uicontrol object. Its property 'callback' defines what action is executed when the button is pressed. Specifically, the property can contain (see here for more detailed information and additional possibilities):
A char vector, which will be executed as code.
Sometimes the char vector this is just a call to a function that does the actual work.
A handle to a function, which will get called with two input arguments, specifying the object and the event.
So, in your case, you can do either of the following:
(Note that the quote whithin the char vector symbols are escaped by duplicating):
set(A, 'callback', 'disp(''Someone pressed the button'')')
(Note that I am defining the as anonymous, and that it does not take any inputs):
dispFun = #()disp('Someone pressed the button')
set(A, 'callback', 'dispFun')
With this approach, the function needs to be in scope when the button is pressed, so that it can be found by the interpreter.
(Note the function must take two inputs):
dispFun = #(o,e)disp('Someone pressed the button')
set(A, 'callback', dispFun)
With this approach there are no scope restrictions. The function handle defines the anonymous function itself, which gets assigned to the callback.
On the other hand, if the function resides in a file, say dispFun_file.m, using
set(A, 'callback', #dispFun_file)
again assigns a handle to the function, but that function is now on a different place. So if the function is modified (or removed from memory with clear functions) the callback will change.

"Error using get" using a 'addlistener' function in Matlab GUI

I have a problem in a Matlab GUI code. Let say for instance that I want to display in the console the value of a slider cursor in the GUI. But the fact is that I want to display it in real time, eg at each position of the cursor even if the click is still on, while moving it.
For this, I read on internet that the 'addlistener' function could help me. I put it in the slider_CreateFcn function like this :
function slider1_CreateFcn(hObject, eventdata, handles)
h=addlistener(hObject,'Value','PostSet',#(~,~)slider1_Callback)
Then, I added a simple disp function in the callback function, like this :
function slider1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
get(hObject,'value')
Running this code raise this error :
Warning: Error occurred while executing callback:
Error using get
Cannot find 'get' method for matlab.graphics.internal.GraphicsMetaProperty class.
Error in untitled>slider1_Callback (line xx)
get(hObject,'value')
If I remove the addlistener function, obviously the update is no more in real time, but I don't get the error message. So I think that the problem is directly coming from the addlistener function.
What is happening and how can I fix it?
First of all, the code that you posted isn't the code that is producing your error. I'm guessing that the code that yielded your error looked like this:
h = addlistener(hObject, 'Value', 'PostSet', #slider1_Callback);
In this instance, a meta property is passed as the first input argument to slider1_Callback which is giving you the immediate error you're seeing.
That being said, if you want to call slider1_Callback you need to craft an anonymous function which actually passes the correct type (and number) of inputs to the callback function. Here is one which does that.
function slider1_CreateFcn(hObject, eventdata, handles)
h = addlistener(hObject, 'Value', 'PostSet', ...
#(src,evnt)slider1_Callback(hObject, [], handles))
end
The better thing to do though, is to just use a separate callback rather then the one that GUIDE creates for you. This gives you a little bit more flexibility. Also, if you just want to display the value you don't need all of the other inputs and you can actually inline the entire callback rather than having a separate function.
h = addlistener(hObject, 'Value', 'PostSet', #(s,e)disp(get(hObject, 'Value')));
And to show it in action:

Stop A GUI in a middle of process in MATLAB

I'm designing a GUI using GUIDE in MATLAB R2014b. My program has a long loop (takes 2~5h to process). I want have a button in my GUI that the user stop the process every time he/she want (The GUI is updating graphs and texts continuously based on result of loops). Something like pressing Control+C not after ending a loop. How can I implement this?
PS.
I don't want MATLAB remove my workspace. The user can continue the process with previous loaded data and workspace by changing some options in GUI.
Here is a trick that should work: Somewhere in the GUI, like in its OpeningFcn for instance, initialize a flag named for example StopNow to false and store it in the handles structure of the GUI. Then in the loop that takes long to execute, put an if statement with a call to return whenever the flag is set to true. That will stop the execution of the loop and you will have access to your data. You can make a pushbutton to change the flag value.
Sample code: I made a simple GUI that starts enumerating digits in a for loop and printing them in a text box. When you press the STOP button, the flag is set to true and the loop stops. If something is unclear please tell me.
function StopGUI
clear
clc
close all
%// Create figure and uielements
handles.fig = figure('Position',[440 500 400 150]);
handles.CalcButton = uicontrol('Style','Pushbutton','Position',[60 70 80 40],'String','Calculate','Callback',#CalculateCallback);
handles.StopButton = uicontrol('Style','Pushbutton','Position',[250 70 80 40],'String','STOP','Callback',#StopCallback);
%// Initialize flag
handles.StopNow = false;
handles.Val1Text = uicontrol('Style','Text','Position',[150 100 60 20],'String','Value 1');
handles.Val1Edit = uicontrol('Style','Edit','Position',[150 70 60 20],'String','');
guidata(handles.fig,handles); %// Save handles structure of GUI. IMPORTANT
function CalculateCallback(~,~)
%// Retrieve elements from handles structure.
handles = guidata(handles.fig);
for k = 1:1000
if handles.StopNow == false
set(handles.Val1Edit,'String',num2str(k));
pause(.5) %// The pause is just so we see the numbers changing in the text box.
else
msgbox('Process stopped');
return
end
end
guidata(handles.fig,handles); %// Save handles structure of GUI.
end
function StopCallback(~,~)
%// Retrieve elements from handles structure.
handles = guidata(handles.fig);
handles.StopNow = true;
guidata(handles.fig,handles); %// Save handles structure of GUI.
end
end
Screenshot after pressing the STOP button:
Hope that helps!
Best solution would be to use separate threads (one for the user interface and one for the processing) maybe using parallel toolbox. Anyhow this would be then quite complex to synchronise both.
So, here is a simple solution that only relies on anonymous functions (to delegate interface refreshing outside the processing block) and on drawnow function (to force the graphical interface to process its messages).
Sample application
The sample application to work with is very basic. It contains:
A settings panel (with only one setting, the number of iterations for the processing block)
A progress bar
A Go/Cancel button
NB: Source code is quite long (about 250 lines, mainly due to gui creation), so I dropped it here.
GUI creation is not important. The most important parts are the processing block, the anonymous functions to instrument the code and the callbacks to react to the GUI events. I will thus detail theses only.
The processing block
Processing block is a simple routine:
function [] = processing(count, instrumentation)
%[
for ki = 1:count,
instrumentation.CheckCancel();
instrumentation.Progress((ki-1)/count);
if (ki > 1), pause(1); end
instrumentation.CheckCancel();
instrumentation.Progress(ki/count);
end
%]
end
The only special thing about it is that it takes an additional instrumentation structure. This structure has two fields that points to two anonymous functions defined by the caller (i.e. the graphical interface). We'll see shortly how.
CheckCancel is a function in charge of raising an error if the user wants to stop the processing.
Progress is a function on which to delegate progression report.
Here is how the anonymous functions are connected to the graphical interface (see doProcessing sub-function in the code):
% Connect instrumentation callbacks with the gui
instrumentation.CheckCancel = #(ratio)onCheckCancel(dlg);
instrumentation.Progress = #(ratio)onProgress(dlg, ratio);
% Perform the processing
processing(settings.NumberOfIterations, instrumentation);
Progress and CheckCancel handlers
Here is the handler defined by the GUI for Progress:
function [] = onProgress(dlg, ratio)
%[
% Update the progress bar value
data = guidata(dlg);
uiprogress(data.handles.pbProgress, ratio);
% Force interface to refresh
drawnow();
%]
end
This is simple, it just updates progressbar control and forces the GUI to refresh (remind that matlab is single-threaded and is currently executing the processing block, so we need to force GUI refreshing).
Here is the handler for CheckCancel:
function [] = onCheckCancel(dlg)
%[
% Force interface to process its events
drawnow();
% Check 'UserData' has not been modified during events processing
guiState = get(dlg, 'UserData');
if (~isempty(guiState) && ....
strcmp(guiState, 'CancelRequested') || strcmp(guiState, 'CloseRequested'))
error('System:OperationCanceledException', 'Operation canceled');
end
%]
end
Again, this is quite simple. We force the GUI to process events (buttons clicks, etc...) and then we read if UserData was modified to some expected value. If so, we raise an exception to stop the processing. Remind again that currently executing code is the processing block.
GUI events handlers
The GUI has only two interesting events. Either the user clicks the close button, either he/she clicks the Go/Cancel button.
NB: Remind that even if matlab is locked in executing the processing block, GUI events are still processed because processing block is calling drawnow from time to time (by the mean of the instrumentation delegates).
Here is the code for the close button:
function [] = onCloseRequest(dlg)
%[
% If already in computation mode
if (~isempty(get(dlg, 'UserData')))
% Just indicate close is requested and leave immediatly
set(dlg, 'UserData', 'CloseRequested');
data = guidata(dlg);
set(data.handles.btnGoCancel, 'Enable', 'off', 'String', 'Cancelling...');
return;
end
% Immediate close
delete(dlg);
%]
end
This is simple, if we are in running mode, we just signal we want to stop, else we close the dialog immediately.
Here is the code for the go/cancel button:
function [] = onGoCancelClick(dlg)
%[
% If already in computation mode
if (~isempty(get(dlg, 'UserData')))
% Just indicate cancel is requested and leave immediatly
set(dlg, 'UserData', 'CancelRequested');
data = guidata(dlg);
set(data.handles.btnGoCancel, 'Enable', 'off', 'String', 'Cancelling...');
return;
end
% Go into computation mode
[settings, err] = tryReadSettings(dlg);
if (~isempty(err))
waitfor(msgbox(err.message, 'Invalid settings', 'Error', 'Modal'));
else
enterComputationMode(dlg);
err = doProcessing(dlg, settings);
leaveComputationMode(dlg, err);
end
%]
end
It's a little longer, anyhow this is the same. If we're in running mode, we just indicate we want to stop; else, the interface is in normal mode, and we start the processing.
Functions tryReadSettings, enterComputationMode and leaveComputationMode are just glue to update controls in the interface and nicely report for errors or cancellation.
Conclusion
We have designed a responsive graphical interface relying only on drawnow and anonymous functions. This is of course just a trick and a better solution would be to use multitasking.
The graphical interface was created here programmatically. Principle is the same if build with GUIDE or with the help of the GUI Layout toolbox.
Instrumentation callbacks can further be improved, for instance, by adding a Log field to report processing details in a textbox or to some back-end similar to Log4Net (with just a message level and message value). Or by adding callback for intermediate results.
Interface can also be improved or modified, for instance why not to run processing whenever a setting is modified (i.e. just stopping any current run and without the need to manually click on a 'Go/Cancel' button each time).
There are a lot of possibilities. Here, just providing some ground application to start with (or not ...).

pass value between two callback function in matlab GUI

I have 2 pushbutton. If i press one infinte loop will be running and if i press other loop must break. please some help in code.
Thanks in advance
Are you using GUIDE or a "programmatic" gui? The following is a little example for a programmatic gui; similar concepts may apply for GUIDE. (I personally like the added flexibility of the programmatic gui route, plus I always end up irrevocably breaking any GUIDE gui's I create...)
Anyway, a few things to note in this example:
use of the gui's figure handle UserData field to store "global" information. This is a way to pass data between callbacks.
the pause statement within the "infinite" loop is needed so that the interrupt from cb_button2 is processed. From Matlab help: "If the Interruptible property of the object whose callback is executing is on , the callback can be interrupted. However, it is interrupted only when it, or a function it triggers, calls drawnow, figure, getframe, pause, or waitfor."
function my_gui(varargin)
mainfig = figure;
out.h_button1 = uicontrol(mainfig,...
'Style','pushbutton',...
'Units','Normalized',...
'Position',[0,0.5,1,0.5],...
'String','Button 1',...
'Callback',#cb_button1);
out.h_button2 = uicontrol(mainfig,...
'Style','pushbutton',...
'Units','Normalized',...
'Position',[0,0,1,0.5],...
'String','Button 2',...
'Callback',#cb_button2);
out.button2_flag = 0; %flag indicating whether button 2 has been pressed yet
set(mainfig,'UserData',out);%store "global" data in mainfig's UserData (for use by callbacks)
function cb_button1(varargin)
out = get(gcbf,'UserData'); %gcbf: handle of calling object's figure
while ~out.button2_flag
disp('Aaaahhh, infinite loop! Quick press Button 2!');
out = get(gcbf,'UserData'); %reload "global" data
pause(0.1); %need this so this callback may be interrupted by cb_button2
end
disp('Thanks! I thought that would never end!');
function cb_button2(varargin)
out = get(gcbf,'UserData'); %gcbf: handle of calling object's figure
out.button2_flag = 1;
set(gcbf,'UserData',out); %save changes to "global" data

How to specify when to return output of the function

Say I have the following function:
function result=myfun(varargin)
result=[];
myFig=figure();
B1=uicontrol(myFig,'Style','pushbutton','String','done','Callback',{#done_Callback});
function done_Callback(varargin)
result =10;
delete(mainFig);
end
end
I am trying to only return output after the button callback is executed. Right now it returns an empty variable right away. I know how to do this in guide GUIs but all of my project is written without guide. I am assuming I need uiwait somewhere, but not sure where.
The function uicontrol only generates the button, it doesn't wait for it to be pressed. Otherwise, a full GUI with several elements would not be possible – you couldn't insert another element before the first hadn't been activated, and afterwards the first one could not be activated any longer. For this reason, GUI callbacks are executed in another thread than the main Matlab program, namely in the "event queue".
If you want your program to wait until the button is pressed, you have to program this explicitly:
function result=myfun(varargin)
result=[];
myFig=figure();
B1=uicontrol(myFig,'Style','pushbutton','String','done','Callback',{#done_Callback});
while isempty(result)
drawnow
end
function done_Callback(varargin)
result =10;
fprintf('hi\n')
delete(myFig);
end
end
The drawnow is there to tell Matlab it should allocate execution time to the event queue, which is not normally done when Matlab is busy, e.g. with running a while loop.
For (slightly) more information, have a look at How Does a GUI Work? and drawnow.