I am creating a MATLAB application in GUIDE and now I'm facing a problem. I need to call a function that takes a long time to execute and returns a value but while executing the function I want the GUI to wait for the returned value.
I tried with waitfor but this way I can still interact with the GUI and I can't take the returned value...
waitfor(function);
I can think of something that disables all the GUI then enables it back but I have both enabled and disabled objects...
Do you know any solution to this problem?
A simple solution is to create a modal dialog box with a message "Please wait..." just before executing your long-running function, and then to close the dialog box just after it completes. A modal dialog will be in front of the GUI, and will not allow interactions with the window behind.
It's possible for the user to click the "Close" button on the dialog, but you can override this by setting the "CloseRequestFcn" property of the dialog, so that the close button does nothing (unfortunately you can't easily hide the button).
I like the modal dialog proposed by Sam Roberts. There is no mystery and it is user friendly.
Another dirty and easy solution may be to hide the GUI completely, if it is okay:
set(hFig, 'Visible', 'off');
And set it to 'on' after done. It will be good practice to make sure to set it to 'on' in catch block, to avoid disappearing GUI due to error during execution.
Related
I have a rather large Matlab program that is GUI based. I am looking into creating automated tests for it, as the current way of checking for bugs before a release is simply using all its functionality like a user would.
I would rather not use a GUI testing program that just records clicks and what not, so I was thinking of adding testing code that would call the button callbacks directly. The problem that I have run into with this is that we have a lot of warndlg and msgbox popups, and I would like my tester code to be able to see these.
Is there any way for Matlab code to tell if a function it called created a warndlg or msgbox? If so, is there any way to click 'ok' on these popups?
In a similar vein, is it possible to handle popups that block code execution (using uiwait or an inputdlg)?
If it matters I didn't use GUIDE, and all the GUI elements are created programmatically
Two ways. The first one is more elegant
Let the functions return an extra variable and return the status of the function. For example, 1: success, 2: success with warning, 3: error...
Create some global variables and make the function change them if a warndlg or msbgbox shows up. The main window would then check if the status of the global variable.
You can tell if a warning dialog was created by looking for it's tag using the findobj function. A warning dialog created using warndlg will have the tag "Msgbox_Warning Dialog". So code like this would tell you if the warning dialog exists:
set(0,'ShowHiddenHandles', 'on')
h = findobj('Tag', 'Msgbox_Warning Dialog');
warn_exists = ~isempty(h)
set(0,'ShowHiddenHandles', 'off')
to close the warning dialog, you can call delete, like this:
delete(h)
For the message box, I would store the handle when you create a message box, then look at the children to find the buttons, then look at their callbacks. You should be able to call the callbacks to simulate picking a button.
I want to create a waitbar that should be processed without any interruption. How can I achieve this?
I have tried setting
h=waitbar(0,'please wait','CreateCancelBtn','setappdata(gcbf,''Cancel'',0)');
This disables the Close button on the waitbar, but it also shows me a Cancel button too. I don't want that button.
When you use the CreateCancelBtn option of waitbar, it creates a Cancel button, takes the string you supply, and then sets that string to be both the Callback of the Cancel button (i.e. the thing that happens when you press the button) and the CloseRequestFcn of the figure window (i.e. the thing that happens when you click the Close button on the window frame).
You can avoid this by just directly setting the CloseRequestFcn of the figure window yourself:
h = waitbar(0,'Please Wait...');
h.CloseRequestFcn = '';
The Close button is now disabled.
Bear in mind that the CloseRequestFcn is also what gets executed when you call close(h), so you now won't be able to close it with close(h). You can either call delete(h) instead, or you can make sure that before you call close(h) you reset the CloseRequestFcn back to the default, which is the buit-in function closereq (type edit closereq to see what this does, it basically just calls delete anyway).
Hope that helps!
This is a very strange problem, because I am quite sure the logic is proper but it is still not working. So when the GUI starts, in the starting function, I set most of the buttons to be inactivated using the following line of code for every button, Kbutton, Bbutton etc..:
set(handles.Kbutton,'Enable','off');
set(handles.Bbutton,'Enable','off');
Then, when the user clicks on any cell in the uitable, I use the cell selection callback to get the info about the contents of the cell, and re-activate the buttons that can be used from then on:
set(handles.Kbutton,'Enable','on');
set(handles.Bbutton,'Enable','on');
And till now everything is ok.
So then the user clicks on a button, say Kbutton, and the underlying function is executed thanks to the button's callback function. Once the method is ready I would like to return the buttons to their initial state i.e. inactivated. So logic tells me, re-put the initial line of code at the end of the callback function and done:
set(hObject,'Enable','off');
drawnow;
set(handles.BButton,'Enable','off');
drawnow;
Where the first line of code in the above snippet, refers to the button who fired the callback and BButton is any other button in the GUI.
For some strange reason only the second one is being enabled off. I.e. the button that fired the callback is staying enabled on :/
Has anyone encountered the same problem?
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Try changing
set(hObject,'Enable','off');
to
set(handles.Kbutton,'Enable','off');
You click on tools =>gui options =>Generate FlG file and MATLAB file
As it is referenced in MATLAB documentation for edit box uicontrol or stated in this
post, when another component or menu bar or background GUI is clicked, the edit box callback gets executed. But in my attempts to use this functionality, I haven't been able so far to see the callback execution unless there is a change of edit box text or Enter key is pressed. What I'm trying to achieve is to execute edit box callback whenever there is focus loss from edit box even when nothing has been entered. Please enlighten me about what I'm missing here and how I can do this?
Thanks in advance.
The underlying Java object has a callback called FocusLostCallback that'll do what you want - execute when the object's focus is lost, even if you changed nothing.
You'll need findjobj from the MATLAB File Exchange. Then, get the Java handle and set the callback as usual (make sure the uicontrol is visible when you try to get the Java handle):
jh = findjobj(myEditBox); % myEditBox is a uicontrol handle
set(jh, 'FocusLostCallback', #myCallback);
A more complete list of the undocumented uicontrol callbacks can be found at Yair Altman's Undocumented MATLAB blog.
This method work perfectly with single-line textbox, but it has any effect with multi-line textbox (uicontrol, style edit, max = 2)
In my HTA, I hold it it open if an error occurred, and close it if everything was successful. At the start, I have the sysmenu property set to no because I do not want the user to close the HTA until it's finished. At the end, I want them to be able to click on the close button. Here's what I typed up to try to achieve this, but it doesn't seem to work? I suspect there is something I need to do to get the HTA to refresh it's windows properties?
Please note that any solution that completely reloads the window and/or makes the script execute again is not acceptable
If Not bHoldOpen Then
Call window.close
Else
Dim tagHTA
Set tagHTA = document.getElementsByTagName("hta:application").item(0)
Call tagHTA.setAttribute("sysmenu","yes")
End If
You cannot change it at runtime, its only available in the HTA: block as its value is used to determine how the physical window is to be initially created.
I thought you could produce a warning using the onBeforeUnload event & call cancelBubble to abort the close, but I tried it in IE8 and it still seems bugged; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946214.
It would probably be simpler and easier for the user to comprehend if you were yo just unhide a "Close" button when the process completed.