MATLAB: How to clear stuck help popups

MATLABmatlab gui

2019a Matlab on Linux. Sometimes a help popup for a function (or similar) will pop up from the GUI and refuse to go away when it normally would. They continue to sit there and block what is behind them. It stays at a constant place on the screen, so I can sometimes move the window around to get my work done. Is there any way to clear them short of killing matlab and starting over? This is not on a figure, it's in the command window or editor.

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Updates June 12, 2020:

There is a recognized bug report on a very similar issue: https://www.mathworks.com/support/bugreports/1987277 - this bug report is about function hints, but presumably it's the same underlying problem as for help popups.
The following code snippet is supposed to close any open help popups or function hints:

ws = com.mathworks.mwswing.window.MJFullWindowRegistry.windows;
while ws.hasMoreElements, w=ws.nextElement; if any(strcmp(w.getName,{'HelpPopup','FunctionHints'})),w.dispose,end, end

The "stuck popup" problem has annoyed me for years. I notice them, for example, if I display a large multi-line data-tip (or the code that's displayed when you hover the mouse above the "..." in folded code) in the editor and then switch to another editor file very quickly. The popup then gets stuck. As noted above, these popups are not a figure and no programmatic close of figures closes them.

My experience has been that the following combination of actions can sometimes (not always, nor predictably) assist:

click the Esc key
hover the mouse on top of another "..." of folded code
switch to another editor file
switch to another application that will hide (overlap) Matlab, and then switch back to Matlab

In the case of a function help, try clicking F1 to try to replace the persistent popup with a new one (that will hopefully be more well-behaved), then dismiss it in the normal way.

Unfortunately, I am not aware of a programmatic way to dismiss tooltip popups in the Editor.

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MATLAB: How to change ‘CloseRequestFcn’ property of a figure, so when the figure is reopened, it uses a different ‘CloseRequestFcn’

Modification of the 'CloseRequestFcn' can occur upon re-openging the figure using the 'CreateFcn'. Try the following example:

plot(1:10)
set(gcf, 'CloseRequestFcn', 'disp(''closing figure...''); closereq')
set(gcf, 'CreateFcn', 'set(gcf, ''CloseRequestFcn'', ''closereq'', ''CreateFcn'', '''')')
hgsave myFigure

This example creates a figure with a simple line plot. In line 2, the ‘CloseRequestFcn’ is altered to display “closing figure…” at the Command Prompt when the figure is closed. In line 3, the ‘CreateFcn’ is set to a command which resets both the ‘CloseRequestFcn’ and the ‘CreateFcn’ to their default values.

After executing the example, examine the ‘CloseRequestFcn’ and ‘CreateFcn’ properties by entering the following at the MATLAB Command Prompt:

get(gcf, ‘CloseRequestFcn’)
get(gcf, ‘CreateFcn’)

When you close the figure, you will see “closing figure…” at the MATLAB Command Prompt.

Reopen the figure by executing:

    open myFigure.fig

Then examine the ‘CloseRequestFcn’ and ‘CreateFcn’ properties. Note that both of these properties have been reset to their default values. The figure will now close properly when the user exits the figure. These new properties will be saved if you resave the figure, otherwise the ‘CloseRequestFcn’ and ‘CreateFcn’ will continue to be reset each time the figure file is loaded.

MATLAB: How to change the Gui close function whithout changing the close function of figures

Mathieu - my understanding of the DefaultFigureCloseRequestFcn is that once set at the root level (0), then MATLAB uses this setting for the CloseRequestFcn of all subsequently created figures.

I think what you want to do instead is just modify the CloseRequestFcn for your GUI figure. If you are using GUIDE, then you should click the figure and select (from the menu) View --> View Callbacks --> CloseRequestFcn and the following should appear in the editor

 % --- Executes when user attempts to close YourGuiName.
function YourGuiName_CloseRequestFcn(hObject, eventdata, handles)
% hObject    handle to YourGuiName (see GCBO)
% eventdata  reserved - to be defined in a future version of MATLAB
% handles    structure with handles and user data (see GUIDATA)

% Hint: delete(hObject) closes the figure delete(hObject);

You could then change the body to something like

 selection = questdlg('Close YourGuiName?',...
                     'Close Request Function',...
                     'Yes','No','Yes');
 switch selection,
   case 'Yes',
     delete(hObject);
   case 'No'
     return
 end

To do something more similar to the code you have written in your question, you could do

 set(figure_handle,'CloseRequestFcn','my_closereq')

where figure_handle is the handle to your figure. Note how we use CloseRequestFcn (just like the GUIDE approach) which will affect figure_handle only and not be the default behaviour for all other figures.

Try the above and see what happens!

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Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to change ‘CloseRequestFcn’ property of a figure, so when the figure is reopened, it uses a different ‘CloseRequestFcn’

MATLAB: How to change the Gui close function whithout changing the close function of figures

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