MATLAB: Prompt user before clearing axis when using the “clear axes” context menu

axescleargraphinterceptoverride

Today one of my users inadvertently selected "Clear Axis" (he was aiming for "Paste") while using a tool I wrote and maintain. This action is not reversible using the built in "undo" functionality.
This resulted in a fair amount of frustration and time lost, as the entire figure needed to be repopulated. I thought it would be a simple task to add a questdlg() or some other user interaction ("Are you sure?") or possibly remove the menu item altogether.
I haven't had any luck. It looks like the uicontextmenu is generated when the right-click happens, and I don't seem to be able to override or intercept it.
The callback is @localClearAxis (something like that) which must be an internal private method somewhere in the Matlab toolbox, and I can't seem to overload it, either.
In short, I'm stuck.
I can turn off the 'hittest' property for the axis, but that's a terrible solution because it breaks a lot of useful functionality.
Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions?
Thanks!

Best Answer

Another half-answer (pick your poison) I came up with is to overload cla. This clearly has its own dangers, but could be somewhat elegant if you had a unique property value you could query to confirm the axes comes from the tool you wrote and maintain.
function ret_ax = cla(varargin)
% Borrow the input-checking logic from MATLAB's original cla here
% ...
% getappdata, or however you choose to bury your identifier
% or omit if you want to prompt user before clearing axes with ANY method
axappdata = getappdata(ax);
if ~isempty(axappdata) && isfield(axappdata,'MyUniqueID') && strcmp(axappdata.MyUniqueID,'ThisCameFromMyTool!')
  rsp = questdlg('Clear the axes?');
  if ~strcmp(rsp,'Yes')
    return
  end
end
%EDIT: per clarification from Steven Lord, builtin cannot be used for cla
% builtin('cla',varargin{:});
% The only other option (and this makes me feel dirty) I can think of
% Store a function handle to the real cla before adding the overloaded cla to the path
realcla = getappdata(groot,'realcla');
feval(realcla,varargin{:});
% Your startup function should then be something like:
function startup
% I think setappdata works with groot...
setappdata(groot,'realcla',@cla);
addpath([path to overloaded cla.m]);
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