updating a function in MATLAB - matlab

Question

The code below works. You can copy-paste this code in case you don't understand what I ask below.
In my gui, I have a pushbutton, popupmenu and edittext. Pushbutton enables adding new strings to popupmenu with the answers obtained from inputdlg. The strings in popupmenu have additional information which is defined in windowType function. When scrolling between popupmenu list, pmh_call calls windowType function and displays the information on edittext. The information on windowType function is predefined. However, what I want is to add new window types and information to this function. This is the first time I develop a GUI. So, I may have started this saving new info business to a function all wrong. Any help is appreciated.
function [] = mygui(varargin)
S.fh = figure('Visible','on','numbertitle','off','Name','Gunebakan GUI',...
'units','pixels','Position',[500 500 200 100]);
S.pbh_definewindow = uicontrol(S.fh,'Style','pushbutton','String','Define window',...
'HorizontalAlignment','center','BackgroundColor',[0.6602 0.0234 0.2539],...
'Position',[10 80 100 20]);
S.pmh_window = uicontrol(S.fh,'Style','popupmenu','String',{'Type1','Type2'},...
'Value',1,'BackgroundColor','w','Position',[10 50 150 18]);
S.eth_windowlength = uicontrol(S.fh,'Style','edit','String','4','Position',[10 10 50 20]);
set(S.pbh_definewindow,'callback',{#pbh_call,S});
set(S.pmh_window,'callback',{#pmh_call,S});
function [] = pmh_call(varargin)
S = varargin{3};
string = get(S.pmh_window,{'String','Value'});
string = string{1}(string{2});
[ windowtypeinfo ] = windowType( string );
str = num2str(windowtypeinfo.length);
set(S.eth_windowlength,'String',str);
function [] = pbh_call(varargin)
S = varargin{3};
error = 1;
prompt = {'Type name:','Type length:'};
name = 'Yeni Agac Tanimlama';
numlines = 1;
defaultanswer = {'benimagacim','2'};
answer = inputdlg(prompt,name,numlines,defaultanswer);
options.Resize = 'on';
options.WindowStyle = 'normal';
options.Interpreter = 'tex';
q = get(S.pmh_window,'String');
error = 1;
while error == 1
if ~any(strcmpi(answer{1},q))
error = 0;
else
answer(1) = inputdlg('Type name already used, enter another!')
error = 1;
end
end
P = get(S.pmh_window,{'string','value'});
q(length(q)+1) = answer(1);
set(S.pmh_window,'string',q);
function [ windowtypeinfo ] = windowType( string )
if strcmpi(string,'Type1')
windowtypeinfo.typename = 'Type1';
windowtypeinfo.length = 4;
elseif strcmpi(string,'Type2')
windowtypeinfo.typename = 'Type2';
windowtypeinfo.length = 5;
end

Answer 1

The question isn't really well posed but I think I understand what you're asking. To answer your final thought, I would say there is a better way to store your data. Consider the following simplified example:
function testgui
% Initialize GUI
h.myfig = figure;
h.mybutton = uicontrol( ...
'Style', 'pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'normalized', ...
'Position', [0.15 0.70, 0.70 0.15], ...
'String', 'Add Style' ...
);
h.mymenu = uicontrol( ...
'Style', 'popupmenu', ...
'Units', 'normalized', ...
'Position', [0.15 0.50 0.70 0.10], ...
'String', ' ' ...
);
h.myedit = uicontrol( ...
'Style', 'edit', ...
'Units', 'normalized', ...
'Position', [0.15 0.15 0.70 0.10], ...
'String', ' ' ...
);
set(h.mybutton, 'callback',{#addwindow, h});
set(h.mymenu, 'callback',{#changewindow, h});
% Initialize data structure
mydata(1).typename = 'Type1';
mydata(1).windowlength = 4;
mydata(2).typename = 'Type2';
mydata(2).windowlength = 5;
updatepopup(mydata, h);
% Set initial editbox value
set(h.myedit, 'String', mydata(1).windowlength);
% Store data for later
guidata(h.myfig, mydata);
end
function updatepopup(mydata, h) % Update strings in popup menu based on data array
typenames = {mydata.typename}; % Collect all the existing typenames
set(h.mymenu, 'String', typenames); % Update popup menu
end
function addwindow(~, ~, h) % Prompt user to add window
prompt = {'Type name:','Type length:'};
name = 'myprompt';
nlines = 1;
defaultanswer = {'asdf', '1'};
myanswer = inputdlg(prompt, name, nlines, defaultanswer);
% Prepare new information for storage
newwindow.typename = myanswer{1};
newwindow.windowlength = str2double(myanswer{2});
mydata = guidata(h.myfig); % Pull in existing data
mydata = [mydata newwindow]; % Add new data to existing data
updatepopup(mydata, h); % Update popup menu
guidata(h.myfig, mydata); % Store data for later
end
function changewindow(~, ~, h) % Update editbox based on popup menu selection
mydata = guidata(h.myfig); % Pull in stored data
windowselected = get(h.mymenu, 'Value'); % Get index of window selected
set(h.myedit, 'String', mydata(windowselected).windowlength); % Change editbox
end
Rather than manually getting your window type with a separate function (windowType() in your example), I would try storing your data in the GUI as a data structure and pulling it out as necessary. This allows you to use more generalized code and not have to think about how to handle every case with the loop you have now. Hopefully this is easy to follow and adapt to your needs.

Answer 2

You should use guide in order to easily develop GUI's in MATLAB. If you do, you will find that each element in your GUI is called by a handles.something.
For example:
Lets say that you want to add the string in the inputdlg to your popup menu, you should do something like this:
set(handles.popupMenu,'String',[predefStrings; get(handles.inputdlg,'String')]);
The 'String' argument in a popup menu must be an array of strings.