MATLAB: Control of arrow keys

arrow keys

I have a gui with next and back buttons that display successive graphs. Is there a way to enable the left/right arrow keys to control this as with the back/next buttons?

Best Answer

WindowKeyPressFcn at the figure level.

Caution: if zoom or pan are active then they take over control of key presses. A workaround for this exists though.

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to disable the ZOOM context menu in MATLAB 7.6 (R2008a)

To control the behavior of a right-click action when ZOOM is active change the property ‘rightclickaction’ of the zoom mode object.

A value of 'InverseZoom' causes a right-click to zoom out.

h=zoom(gcf);
set(h,'rightclickaction','InverseZoom');

MATLAB: Reading Arrow Key Input

Here is an example of how to use the arrow keys in the keypressfcn.

function [] = move_fig()
% move figure with arrow keys.
S.fh = figure('units','pixels',...
              'position',[500 500 200 260],...
              'menubar','none',...
              'name','move_fig',...
              'numbertitle','off',...
              'resize','off',...
              'keypressfcn',@fh_kpfcn);
S.tx = uicontrol('style','text',...
                 'units','pixels',...
                 'position',[60 120 80 20],...
                 'fontweight','bold'); 
guidata(S.fh,S)             
function [] = fh_kpfcn(H,E)          
% Figure keypressfcn
S = guidata(H);
P = get(S.fh,'position');
set(S.tx,'string',E.Key)
switch E.Key
    case 'rightarrow'
        set(S.fh,'pos',P+[5 0 0 0])
    case 'leftarrow'
        set(S.fh,'pos',P+[-5 0 0 0])
    case 'uparrow'
        set(S.fh,'pos',P+[0 5 0 0])
    case 'downarrow'
        set(S.fh,'pos',P+[0 -5 0 0])
    otherwise  
end

EDIT

% This assigns the string value of the key to a in the base workspace.
set(h_fig,'KeyPressFcn',@(H,E) assignin('base','a',E.Key));

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to disable the ZOOM context menu in MATLAB 7.6 (R2008a)

MATLAB: Reading Arrow Key Input

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