MATLAB: Generating a clickable list of strings and have a new variable selected with that string

guiselect string

I am looking to populate a list of statistics, essentially a list of strings, representing a set of statistics names (i.e. volume, intensity, Surface area). I want to be able to visualize all the stats and select a one of them, and set it as a new variable.
I would like to have some kind of simple GUI interface, I was trying to make a dropdown menu of some kind using the following, but I am not sure how to get the string out. I want to be able to have the script pause until i chose one.
vSpotsStatsNameUnique = {'Volume';'MeanIntensity';'SurfaceArea};
S.fh = figure('units','pixels',...
              'position',[300 300 300 110],...
              'menubar','none',...
              'name','Spot Statistics',...
              'numbertitle','off',...
              'resize','off');
S.pp = uicontrol('style','pop',...
                  'units','pixels',...
                  'position',[20 10 260 40],...
                  'string', vSpotsStatsNameUnique);
S.ed = uicontrol('style','edit',...
                 'units','pix',...
                 'position',[20 60 260 30],...
                 'fontsize',16,'string','none');
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thankyou.

Best Answer

Hello,
if I understood correctly, you want to get the actual selected string from popup uicontrol.
A simple way to do that is presented below:
vSpotsStatsNameUnique = {'Volume'; 'MeanIntensity'; 'SurfaceArea'};
handles.figure = figure('units', 'pixels', ...
                        'position', [300 300 300 110], ...
                        'menubar', 'none', ...
                        'name', 'Spot Statistics', ...
                        'numbertitle', 'off', ...
                        'resize', 'off');
handles.popup = uicontrol('style','pop', ...
                          'units', 'pixels', ...
                          'position', [20 10 260 40], ...
                          'string', vSpotsStatsNameUnique, ...
                          'Callback', @myFunc);                 
handles.edit = uicontrol('style', 'edit', ...
                         'units', 'pixels', ...
                         'position', [20 60 260 30], ...
                         'fontsize', 16, 'string', 'none');                    
guidata(handles.figure, handles);
Note that a callback was added to the popup, pointing to the function @myFunc. Then, to access the selected string from popup control you can use the following method.
function myFunc(hObj,~,~)
    while ~strcmp('figure', get(hObj, 'type')) && ~isempty(hObj) % While hObj isn't a figure
        hObj = get(hObj, 'Parent');
    end
    hObj = guidata(hObj);                                        % Get the handles structure.
    PopStrings = get(hObj.popup, 'String');                      % Read the string list on the popup control.
    PopIdx = get(hObj.popup, 'Value');                           % Read the selected index.
    PopSelected = PopStrings{PopIdx};                            % Your string value goes in here.
    disp(PopSelected);
end
Hope this helps you.
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