MATLAB: Programatically selecting cells in a uitable

MATLABuitable

How would I programatically select a cell, e.g., highlight row 3, column 2 in a uitable?

I found some 5+ year old answers using an obsolete version of uitable that no longer seem to work.

Edit: here is what I found that did not work:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/165066

Best Answer

I figured out the answer by further reviewing the long thread in my question. Here is some updated code that works at least until Matlab R2015b.

% m = numeric handle to uitable
m = uitable(...); 
jUIScrollPane = findjobj(m);
jUITable = jUIScrollPane.getViewport.getView;
jUITable.changeSelection(row-1,col-1, false, false);
% subtract 1 from row and col you want selected
% the last two arguments do the following:
% false, false: Clear the previous selection and ensure the
%  new cell is selected.
% false, true: Extend the previous selection (select a range of cells).
% true, false: Toggle selection
% true, true: Apply the selection state of the anchor to all cells
%  between it and the specified cell.

Using combinations of the last two arguments, you can select any cells you want programatically, even if they're not contiguous.

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Select a cell from a uitable using two edit boxes

Matlab R2021a and later

Starting in Matlab R2021a, you can programmatically scroll to any row, column, or cell of a uitable using the scroll function (see Four New App Features in MATLAB R2021a).

Syntax examples:

scroll(uit,vlocation) where vlocation is 'top'-'bottom'
scroll(uit,hlocation) where hlocation is 'left'-'right'
scroll(uit,target,targetIndex) where target is 'row'-'column'-'cell' and targetIndex is a row or column number or a 1x2 cell location.

Prior to R20201a

Here's a method to programmatically select a cell which highlights the chosen cell as if it were just selected manually. This requires FEX: findjobj(); credit to this answer .

% Create a working UI table for the example
f = figure;
t = uitable(f,'Data',randi(100,10,3),'Position',[20 20 262 204]);
% Select row and col numbers
row = 2; 
col = 3; 
% Select cell programmatically
jUIScrollPane = findjobj(t);
jUITable = jUIScrollPane.getViewport.getView;
jUITable.changeSelection(row-1,col-1, false, false);

If you're trying to act on that cell by applying a function to the cell's content, you might not have to actually highlight it and you could avoid the 3rd party function.

MATLAB: How to control Uitable scroller position

This workaround solution use again the FEX: findjobj functionality and implicitly sets the selection mode to SINGLE_SELECTION. If the user selects a new cell, then the focus is switched to the view making the selected row now visible again.

    set(mtable, 'CellSelectionCallBack', @selectionChangeCallBack);
    function selectionChangeCallBack(src, eventdata)
        if ~isempty( eventdata.Indices)
            where_changed = eventdata.Indices(1);
            jscrollpane = javaObjectEDT(findjobj(src));
            viewport    = javaObjectEDT(jscrollpane.getViewport);
            jtable      = javaObjectEDT( viewport.getView );
            jtable.scrollRowToVisible(where_changed - 1);
        end
    end

it requires findjobj functionality, and works fine on Matlab R2017a.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Select a cell from a uitable using two edit boxes

MATLAB: How to control Uitable scroller position

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