MATLAB: How to get state of the default axestoolbar buttons in UIAxes? And how to turn them on or off programmatically

axtoolbaraxtoolbarbtnbuttonstateuiaxes

Hi,

I have a plot with a callback function 'buttonDownFcn' that applies the area function to plot a tranparent square on top of the data. I don't want my callback function to run if any of the default state buttons are pressed.

How to get the state of the default buttons of the axestoolbar in UIAxes?

Another workaround is to create an extra button that, when enabled, enables the callback function. But unfortunately I still need set the state of the other default buttons to 0 if the have been pressed previously, otherwise they will interfear with my callback function.

I have just upgraded to R2020b where Mathworks have added more supported features to UIAxes when comparing to R2019b, but I know that there still are some limitations and not supported features in UIAxes, e.g. buttons and availabe callback functions…

So maybe it is not yet possible to "read" the button state values of the axestoolbar in UIAxes?

Any help is apriciated!

Regards Anders.

Best Answer

Hi Anders,

Looks like there's a possibility of changing the button state on toolbar.

    app.PulsePlotUIAxes.Toolbar.Children(2).Value = 'off'
%       ^ Axes handle you're             ^ There are 8 children in standard toolbar
%         interacting with                 so you have to do this command for every single one of them

First child is a toolbardropdown and it doesn't have the Value property, so there's no need to change it.

You can try temporarily disabling interactions in your buttonDownFcn (but I am not sure if that's going to work since toolbar buttons are independent of interactivity). Here's an answer how to disable interactivity.
Maybe you could add a button to the toolbar that executes a callback, that way you are sure that none other button has been selected. toolbar button

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to deselect ToolbarStateButton without clicking on it

% Non default toolbar allows access to Toolbar Children
handles.TB1 = axestoolbar(handles.Axes1,'default');
handles.TB1.Visible = 'on';
for i = 5:6 % Turn zoom buttons off
     handles.TB1.Children(i).Value = 'off'
end
% Reset data cursor
datacursormode(handles.figure1,'on')
datacursormode(handles.figure1,'off')

MATLAB: How to disable the WindowButtonDownFcn callback when panning/zooming in App Designer

For ordinary figures, ButtonDown callbacks are disabled when zoom/pan are selected. However, this is not the case for UIFigures in App Designer, which is why you are running into an issue.

One way to restrict how often the button click callback is triggered is to restrain the clicks to just the line plot itself. You can do this by setting the "ButtonDownFcn" of your plot object when you first create it:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/creating_plots/button-down-callback-function.html

Try creating a plot in the app's StartupFcn, then defining a ButtonDown callback as a nested function within that same StartupFcn. With the ButtonDownFcn callback, clicks will only be recorded if the user touches the plot line itself.

Next, we need to disable the ButtonDownFcn callback any time an AxesToolbar button (like pan or zoom) is turned on.

To detect whether a toolbar button has been selected, you can use the "SelectionChangedFcn" callback for an AxesToolbar object:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/matlab.graphics.controls.axestoolbar-properties.html#mw_d1eae674-733c-43b8-9149-2bf4481a3640_sep_mw_5013a85f-c8fe-4db1-b61f-ad6bb13c6757

This callback will be triggered any time you click zoom/pan. Within this callback you can check two things:

1) If the selected button is "on", then delete your plot object's ButtonDownFcn callback. This will prevent clicks on the line from being recorded.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/matlab.ui.controls.toolbarstatebutton-properties.html#mw_929a634b-3a90-4a23-b147-ab213d3d3029

2) If the selected button is "off", restore the plot object's ButtonDownFcn callback, so that clicks are once again recorded.

I have implemented all this in the StartupFcn of the attached MLAPP file. I have also included output statements to note when a click is being registered and when a toolbar button is being selected/deselected.

For convenience, I am also pasting the code from my StartupFcn below:

function startupFcn(app)

      % plot some data
      x = 1:5; y = 1:5;
      p = plot(app.UIAxes,x,y,'ButtonDownFcn',@line_click);
      % set up callback for toolbar
      app.UIAxes.Toolbar = axtoolbar(app.UIAxes,{'zoomin','zoomout','pan','datacursor'},...
                      'SelectionChangedFcn',{@tbar_change,p});
      % define callbacks as nested functions
      function line_click(~,~)
        disp('click!');
      end
      function tbar_change(~,event,p)
        state = event.Selection.Value; % ToolBarStateButton has a "Value of "on" or "off"
        % if selected, turn off line_click callback
        if state == 'on'
          disp('toolbar button selected; callback turned off');
          p.ButtonDownFcn = [];
        % if not selected, turn back on line_click
        else
          disp('toolbar button de-selected; callback turned back on');
          p.ButtonDownFcn = @line_click;
        end
      end
    end

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to deselect ToolbarStateButton without clicking on it

MATLAB: How to disable the WindowButtonDownFcn callback when panning/zooming in App Designer

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