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Can anyone please tell me how can i make my main app open a secondary app which will capture some values and then send them back to my main app?
I'm aware that this issue is tackled in app designer documentation, but I have been unable to implement those steps successfully. Also, I tried to run the example but Matlab says the file doesn't exists. If anyone could please share that example it would be also very helpful.
I have never tried to implement this on my own, but I often wandered myself how I could accomplish this if facing a complex apps architecture.
Actually, if you instantiate two GUIs in the same script/function, or if you have one GUI creating another GUI inside one of its functions, the simplest way would be to play with function handles. For example, the first GUI can pass a function handle defined among its functions to the target GUI's constructor and, this way, the target GUI can invoke it in order to modify the first GUI's data and/or properties when necessary.
The standard approach, anyway, which is considered as a best practice, works as follows. Let's assume that you have two GUIs named G1 and G2 and that they are distinct (you are not running two instances of the same GUI). If they are both visible (HandleVisibility set to on) and they both have a Tag identifier defined (G1 and G2 in our example), you can search for them within the Matlab "workspace". Hence:
% This is a G2 event handler
function pushbutton1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
g1_h = findobj('Tag','G1');
if (~isempty(g1_h))
% get all data associated to G1
g1_data = guidata(g1_h);
% modify a G2 object based on a G1 object
set(handles.MyTextBox,'String',get(g1_data.MyEditBox,'String'));
end
end
MATLAB's App Designer generates class-based GUI's rather than GUIDE's function-based GUIs. The advantage of this approach is that we can pass the GUIs around as objects rather than having to get creative with things like function returns or searching for objects by tag.
Here's a simple programmatic example that illustrates one approach to this concept. The main figure window opens a secondary prompt window, which provides two inputs. When the prompt window is closed, the primary GUI prints the input values to the command window and exits.
The main window:
classdef mainwindow < handle
properties
mainfig
butt
end
methods
function [self] = mainwindow()
% Build a GUI
self.mainfig = figure('Name', 'MainWindow', 'Numbertitle', 'off', ...
'MenuBar', 'none', 'ToolBar', 'none');
self.butt = uicontrol('Parent', self.mainfig, 'Style', 'Pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.1 0.1 0.8 0.8], ...
'String', 'Push Me', 'Callback', #(h,e) self.buttoncallback);
end
function buttoncallback(self)
tmpwindow = subwindow(); % Open popupwindow
uiwait(tmpwindow.mainfig); % Wait for popup window to be closed
fprintf('Parameter 1: %u\nParameter 2: %u\n', tmpwindow.parameter1, tmpwindow.parameter2);
close(self.mainfig);
end
end
end
The sub window:
classdef subwindow < handle
properties
mainfig
label1
box1
label2
box2
closebutton
parameter1
parameter2
end
methods
function [self] = subwindow()
% Build a GUI
self.mainfig = figure('Name', 'SubWindow', 'Numbertitle', 'off', ...
'MenuBar', 'none', 'ToolBar', 'none');
self.label1 = uicontrol('Parent', self.mainfig, 'Style', 'text', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.4 0.7 0.2 0.05], ...
'String', 'Parameter 1');
self.box1 = uicontrol('Parent', self.mainfig, 'Style', 'edit', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.4 0.6 0.2 0.1], ...
'String', '10');
self.label2 = uicontrol('Parent', self.mainfig, 'Style', 'text', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.4 0.4 0.2 0.05], ...
'String', 'Parameter 2');
self.box2 = uicontrol('Parent', self.mainfig, 'Style', 'edit', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1], ...
'String', '10');
self.closebutton = uicontrol('Parent', self.mainfig, 'Style', 'Pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.4 0.1 0.2 0.1], ...
'String', 'Close Window', 'Callback', #(h,e) self.closewindow);
end
function closewindow(self)
% Drop our input parameters into this window's properties
self.parameter1 = str2double(self.box1.String);
self.parameter2 = str2double(self.box2.String);
% Close the window
close(self.mainfig);
end
end
end
I have a problem with my MATLAB GUI.
I am not using GUIDE so I am self coding everything for my GUI. I have a Main which generates the a first panel of the GUIDE. This panel contains a button which can create other 2 panels through its related callback function. In the other 2 panels it is possible to do other operations calling other callback functions. One of these operations is to create 2 new static texts and 2 new editable texts. I have problems in updating the handles related to those editable texts. More precisely I am not able to retrieve the value of their string once the text is edited and the callback functions of the last 2 panels are called again.
Attached is the code where all the callback functions of the GUI are:
%% server_selected callback function
function server_selected(hObject, eventdata, handles)
%UNTITLED8 Summary of this function goes here
% Detailed explanation goes here
% Get server version and run LaunchCDbQuery
servers = get(handles.server_popup, 'String');
serverVersion = servers{get(handles.server_popup, 'Value')};
[Day] = LaunchCDbQuery(serverVersion);
assignin('base', 'Day', Day)
% Update current outing on GUI
set(handles.outing_text, 'String', strcat(Day.date, Day.DocumentKey))
% Tool description
% Create panel for the tool description
handles.description_panel = uipanel('Title', 'Tool description',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0.675, 0.025, 0.3, 0.9]);
% Create items inside the panel for the tool description
% Function heading
handles.funheading_text = uicontrol('Parent', handles.description_panel,...
'Style', 'text',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0, 0.7, 1, 0.2],...
'String', 'Please choose a tool and click description to obtain the tool''s heading and description.',...
'HorizontalAlignment', 'left');
% Function description
handles.description_text = uicontrol('Parent', handles.description_panel,...
'Style', 'text',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0, 0.05, 1, 0.6],...
'HorizontalAlignment', 'left');
% Tool selection
% Create panel for the tool selection
handles.tool_panel = uipanel('Title', 'Tool selection',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0.35 0.025 0.3 0.9]);
% Create items inside the panel for the tool selection
% Text
handles.tool_text = uicontrol('Parent', handles.tool_panel,...
'Style', 'text',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0 0.7 1 0.2],...
'String', 'Please choose a tool to perform a piece of analysis.',...
'HorizontalAlignment', 'left');
% Popup
handles.tool_popup = uicontrol('Parent', handles.tool_panel,...
'Style', 'popup',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0.2 0.25 0.6 0.4],...
'String', {'plotmaptg'; 'TestReview'});
% Input variables panel
handles.varin_panel = uipanel('Parent', handles.tool_panel,...
'Title', 'Type input variables',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0, 0, 1, 0.3]);
% Description push
handles.tool_push_description = uicontrol('Parent', handles.tool_panel,...
'Style', 'pushbutton',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0.05 0.4 0.4 0.1],...
'String', 'Description',...
'callback', {#tool_description, handles});
% Ok push
handles.tool_push_ok = uicontrol('Parent', handles.tool_panel,...
'Style', 'pushbutton',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0.51 0.4 0.4 0.1],...
'String', 'Ok',...
'callback', {#tool_selected, handles, Day});
% Update guidata
guidata(hObject, handles)
end
%% tool_description callback function
function tool_description(hObject, eventdata, handles)
%UNTITLED2 Summary of this function goes here
% Detailed explanation goes here
% Call handles function
handles = tool_description_handles(handles);
% Update guidata
guidata(hObject, handles)
end
function newHandles = tool_description_handles(handles)
%UNTITLED Summary of this function goes here
% Detailed explanation goes here
% Get tool name
tools = get(handles.tool_popup, 'String');
tool_selected = tools{get(handles.tool_popup, 'Value')};
% Open tool .m file
fid = fopen(strcat(tool_selected, '.m'), 'r');
% Read .m file to find function description and save it
line = fgets(fid);
heading = line;
while isempty(regexp(line, '%', 'ONCE'))
line = fgets(fid);
end
description = [];
while ~isempty(regexp(line, '%', 'ONCE'))
description = strcat(description, line(regexp(line, '%', 'ONCE'):end));
line = fgets(fid);
end
description(regexp(description, '%')) = [];
fclose(fid);
% Set descritption found to the description handle
set(handles.funheading_text, 'String', heading);
set(handles.description_text, 'String', description);
% Find the input variables needed to run the tool
global inputs varout
[varin, varout] = get_arg_names(strcat(pwd, '\Tools\', tool_selected, '.m'));
inputs = cell(1, length(varin{1,1}));
for i = 1:length(varin{1,1})
% Input variable text
handles.varin_text(i) = uicontrol('Parent', handles.varin_panel,...
'Style', 'text',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0, 1-i*(1/length(varin{1,1})), 0.45, 1/length(varin{1,1})],...
'String', varin{1,1}{i,1},...
'HorizontalAlignment', 'left');
% Input variables editable text
handles.varin_edit(i) = uicontrol('Parent', handles.varin_panel,...
'Style', 'edit',...
'units', 'normalized',...
'position', [0.55, 1-i*(1/length(varin{1,1})), 1, 1/length(varin{1,1})],...
'HorizontalAlignment', 'left',...
'callback', {#varin_callback, handles});
end
% Save handles
newHandles = handles;
end
function varin_callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
% hObject handle to edit1 (see GCBO)
% eventdata reserved - to be defined in a future version of MATLAB
% handles structure with handles and user data (see GUIDATA)
% Save in the main workspace the input variables
global inputs
for i = 1:length(inputs)
if isempty(inputs{1,i})
inputs{1,i} = get(hObject,'String');
break
end
end
end
%% tool_selected callback function
function tool_selected(hObject, eventdata, handles, Day)
%UNTITLED Summary of this function goes here
% Detailed explanation goes here
% Get tool name
tools = get(handles.tool_popup, 'String');
tool = tools{get(handles.tool_popup, 'Value')};
% fh = str2func(tool);
% Get tool inputs and outputs
global inputs varout
% Run the tool
if ~isempty(varout)
expression = strcat('out = ', tool, '(');
else
expression = strcat(tool, '(');
end
for i = 1:length(inputs)
if ~isempty(inputs{1,i})
expression = strcat(expression, inputs{1,i}, ',');
else
break
end
end
expression(end) = ')';
eval(expression)
% Update guidata
guidata(hObject, handles)
end
I have tried using guidata(hObject, handles) at the end of each function but it did not work out. As now I am using global variables to avoid the problem but I would really like to just update the handles as they are modified.
When providing an input variable to a callback function, the variable that is passed when you invoke the callback is that variable as it exists when the callback is defined. MATLAB does not know to update these inputs as you modify guidata.
You can see this with the following example:
function testcode
h.mf = figure('Menubar', 'none', 'NumberTitle', 'off', 'ToolBar', 'none');
h.lb = uicontrol('Parent', h.mf, 'Style', 'Listbox', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.1 0.5 0.4 0.4] ...
);
h.b1 = uicontrol('Parent', h.mf, 'Style', 'pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.1 0.1 0.4 0.3], ...
'String', 'Pass handles','Callback', {#button1push, h});
h.b2 = uicontrol('Parent', h.mf, 'Style', 'pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.5 0.1 0.4 0.3], ...
'String', 'Use GUIdata', 'Callback', #button2push);
guidata(h.mf, h);
makepanel(h.mf);
end
function makepanel(mf)
h = guidata(mf);
h.panel = uipanel('Parent', h.mf, 'Title', 'A Panel', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4] ...
);
guidata(h.mf, h);
end
function button1push(~, ~, h)
h.lb.String = fieldnames(h);
end
function button2push(hObj, ~)
h = guidata(hObj);
h.lb.String = fieldnames(h);
end
Push each button and look at the output in the listbox. You can see that the change to h made in makepanel is not shown when you hit Button 1.
Rather than passing handles as a callback input (like Button 1 above), call guidata with an output at the beginning of your function to obtain the most current version of handles. If your callback makes changes to the handles structure, call guidata again to store these changes for other callbacks.
I need code to pushbuttons "zoom in", "zoom out" for my image. Trying to used this but wrong. Please, help me. I work with the MATLAB Gui.
function btnZoomIn_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
uicontrol('Style','pushbutton','String','ZoomIn','Units','pixels',...
'Position',[90 10 60 20],'Enable','off',...
'Tag','btnZoomIn','Callback',#btnZoomIn_Callback);
h = guihandles(hObject);
set(h.btnZoomOut,'Enable','on')
data = guidata(hObject);
data.magnif = data.magnif+1;
guidata(hObject, data)
function btnZoomOut_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
uicontrol('Style','pushbutton','String','Zoom Out','Units','pixels',...
'Position',[160 10 60 20],'Enable','off',...
'Tag','btnZoomOut','Callback',#btnZoomOut_Callback);
h = guihandles(hObject);
data = guidata(hObject);
if data.magnif > 1
data.magnif = data.magnif-1;
if data.magnif == 1
If you want to be cheeky about it (hopefully that idiom translates...), you could just point your professor to the built-in zoom buttons.
A (non-GUIDE) example:
f = figure;
ax = axes('Parent', f, 'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.1 0.18 0.8 0.8]);
A = imread('ngc6543a.jpg'); % Read a built-in image as a sample
image(A, 'Parent', ax);
However, if you need a serious answer, see MATLAB's zoom function, which you can add to your button callbacks.
To expand on the above example:
f = figure;
ax = axes('Parent', f, 'Units', 'Normalized', 'Position', [0.1 0.18 0.8 0.8]);
A = imread('ngc6543a.jpg'); % Read a built-in image as a sample
image(A, 'Parent', ax);
zoomonbutton = uicontrol('Parent', f, ...
'Style', 'pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', ...
'Position', [0.1 0.02 0.4 0.1], ...
'String', 'Zoom On', ...
'Callback', 'zoom on' ...
);
zoomoffbutton = uicontrol('Parent', f, ...
'Style', 'pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', ...
'Position', [0.5 0.02 0.4 0.1], ...
'String', 'Zoom Off', ...
'Callback', 'zoom off' ...
);
Where pushing the 'on' button turns on Interactive Zooming. From the documentation:
zoom on turns on interactive zooming. When interactive zooming is
enabled in a figure, pressing a mouse button while your cursor is
within an axes zooms into the point or out from the point beneath the
mouse. Zooming changes the axes limits. When using zoom mode, you
Zoom in by positioning the mouse cursor where you want the center of the plot to be and either
Press the mouse button or
Rotate the mouse scroll wheel away from you (upward).
Zoom out by positioning the mouse cursor where you want the center of the plot to be and either
Simultaneously press Shift and the mouse button, or
Rotate the mouse scroll wheel toward you (downward).
And pushing the 'off' button turns off this interactive mode.
Hopefully this helps you in the right direction. I would recommend you investigate MATLAB's documentation, it's very comprehensive and has many examples.
i am new to creating GUIs with Matlab. I have one MainGui from which i open a Subgui so that the user can click checkboxes. After clicking the okay-Button my Subgui closes and one sees the MainGui-surface again.
How can i access the clickbutton value without using getappdata and setappdata and instead doing it with findobj-function which when it works is far easier for me.
So i am in the MainGui code and i look for the Subgui with
hGui = findobj('Tag','Subgui');
where 'Subgui' is the value of the Tag property of the SubGUI. Handles visibility is on for both!!
% get control handles for this GUI
handlesSubgui = guidata(hGui);
% now read the data from the checkbox
checkValue = get(handlesSubgui.checkbox1,'Value');
Why doesnt it work? i set the correct Tags and handle visilility is on but i get
hGui =
Empty matrix: 0-by-1
!?
Has anyone an idea? i would be glad to get help!
Best regards, John
One option to consider for a case like this is to initialize a small GUI inside your button callback. To illustrate, I'll set up a little programmatic GUI:
function testcode
res = get(0,'ScreenSize');
figdim = [300 300]; % Figure size, pixels
h.mainfig = figure( ...
'Units', 'Pixels', ...
'Position', [(res(3) - figdim(1))/2 (res(4) - figdim(2))/2 figdim(1) figdim(2)], ...
'Name', 'This is the Main GUI', ...
'Resize', 'off', ...
'DockControls', 'off', ...
'NumberTitle', 'off', ...
'MenuBar', 'none', ...
'Toolbar', 'none' ...
);
h.subGUIbutton = uicontrol( ...
'Parent', h.mainfig, ...
'Units', 'Normalized', ...
'Position', [0.25 0.6 0.5 0.3], ...
'String', 'Open Checkbox GUI' ...
);
h.displaydatabutton = uicontrol( ...
'Parent', h.mainfig, ...
'Units', 'Normalized', ...
'Position', [0.25 0.1 0.5 0.3], ...
'String', 'Display Checkbox Selections' ...
);
% Requires R2014b or newer, otherwise we'll have to use set
try
h.subGUIbutton.Callback = {#checkboxGUI, h};
h.displaydatabutton.Callback = {#displaydata, h};
catch
set(h.subGUIbutton, 'Callback', {#checkboxGUI, h});
set(h.displaydatabutton, 'Callback', {#displaydata, h});
end
And our callbacks will be structured like this:
function checkboxGUI(~, ~, handles)
res = get(0,'ScreenSize');
figdim = [200 200]; % Figure size, pixels
h2.mainfig = figure( ...
'Units', 'Pixels', ...
'Position', [(res(3) - figdim(1))/2 (res(4) - figdim(2))/2 figdim(1) figdim(2)], ...
'Name', 'This is the Sub GUI', ...
'Resize', 'off', ...
'DockControls', 'off', ...
'NumberTitle', 'off', ...
'MenuBar', 'none', ...
'Toolbar', 'none' ...
);
% Build some checkboxes
for ii = 1:4
h2.checkbox(ii) = uicontrol( ...
'Parent', h2.mainfig, ...
'Style', 'checkbox', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', ...
'Position', [0.25 (1 - ii*0.15) 0.5 0.1], ...
'String', sprintf('Checkbox #%u', ii) ...
);
end
h2.closebutton = uicontrol( ...
'Parent', h2.mainfig, ...
'Style', 'pushbutton', ...
'Units', 'Normalized', ...
'Position', [0.25 0.15 0.5 0.1], ...
'String', 'Accept Changes', ...
'Callback', {#closecheckbox} ...
);
function closecheckbox(~, ~)
% requires R2014b or newer for dot notation
try
test = find([h2.checkbox(:).Value]); % Returns ID of checked boxes
catch
test = find(cell2mat(get(h2.checkbox(:), 'Value'))'); % Returns ID of checked boxes
setappdata(handles.mainfig, 'BoxesChecked', test);
close(h2.mainfig);
end
waitfor(h2.mainfig); % Wait for user to close the checkbox GUI
end
function displaydata(~, ~, handles)
BoxesChecked = getappdata(handles.mainfig, 'BoxesChecked');
if isempty(BoxesChecked)
fprintf('No boxes celected\n');
else
fprintf('User selected box: %d\n', BoxesChecked);
end
end
Note that I've used a nested function for readability. In this simple example we have two buttons in our main GUI, a button to open the user prompt and then a display button. When the user opens the checkbox prompt, execution of all GUI commands pauses until the prompt is closed. When the display button is clicked, we get the checked values from the app data and print them to the command window.
I have a displayable image which I load via uigetfile. I want to allow the user to choose which portion of the image he wants to load by keying in the pixel coordinates of the top-left pixel and the bottom-right pixel into editable boxes. The problem is that I'm having some serious issues with the handles structure used to store data and don't quite understand how to use it.
Here is my code. I can easily load the 4 pixels in the topleft corner of the image (that's the default setting), but I fail to load anything else when the editable box values are changed. Is there something I'm missing here?
function mygui
%%
%Initialise GUI and set up editable boxes and push buttons
f = figure('Visible', 'off', 'Position', [360 500 450 285]);
handles.data.topleft1 = 1; %x-axis position of topleft pixel
handles.data.topleft2 = 1; %y-axis position of topleft pixel
handles.data.botright1 = 2; %x-axis position of bottom right pixel
handles.data.botright2 = 2; %y-axis position of bottom right pixel
hloader = uicontrol('Style', 'pushbutton', 'String', 'Load File', 'Position', [8 5 50 20], 'Callback', {#loadbutton_Callback, handles});
htopleft1 = uicontrol('Style', 'edit', 'String', handles.data.topleft1, 'Position', [25 40 15 10], 'Callback', {#topleft1_Callback, handles});
htopleft2 = uicontrol('Style', 'edit', 'String', handles.data.topleft2, 'Position', [40 40 15 10], 'Callback', {#topleft2_Callback, handles});
hbotright1 = uicontrol('Style', 'edit', 'String', handles.data.botright1, 'Position', [25 30 15 10], 'Callback', {#botright1_Callback, handles});
hbotright2 = uicontrol('Style', 'edit', 'String', handles.data.botright2, 'Position', [40 30 15 10], 'Callback', {#botright2_Callback, handles});
set([f, hloader, htopleft1, htopleft2, hbotright1, hbotright2], 'Units', 'normalized');
movegui(f, 'center')
set(f, 'Visible', 'on', 'toolbar', 'figure');
%%
%Loader pushbutton
function loadbutton_Callback(source, eventdata, handles)
[filename, pathname, filterindex] = uigetfile('*.jpg'); %Choose mario picture here from the directory you downloaded it from
picture = imread(strcat(pathname,filename));
topleft1 = handles.data.topleft1;
topleft2 = handles.data.topleft2;
botright1 = handles.data.botright1;
botright2 = handles.data.botright2;
picture = picture([topleft1:botright1], [topleft2:botright2], :); %Trim picture dimensions according to editable box inputs
imagesc(picture)
end
%%
%Editable boxes
function topleft1_Callback(source, eventdata, handles)
%Get new input from editable box; Save it into guidata handles structure thingy
topleft1 = str2double(get(source, 'String'));
handles.data.topleft1 = topleft1;
guidata(source, handles)
end
%(Repeat 3 more times for topleft2, botright1 and botright2)
end
And as usual, here's the picture which I'm trying to trim:
(source: gawkerassets.com)
I can suggest a solution with some changes that might be not as efficient, bu they'll work. I would do this kind of passing data between callbacks simply using the fact that Your whole GUI is a nested function, so all the callbacks can acces handles without even running the guidata function:
Do achieve this just change the way boxes are calling their callbacks from
(... 'Callback', {#topleft1_Callback, handles})
to:
(... 'Callback', #topleft1_Callback)
Now adjust arguments taken by Your callbacks, so the don't take three but two:
function myCallback(source,eventdata)
although none of those will be used, so You could simply write:
function myCallback(~,~)
as You MATlab will probably suggest. And You don't need the
guidata(source, handles);
line in any of Your callbacks anymore, since handles can be accesed anyway just by its name.