uicontrol
Create user interface control
Syntax
Description
Note
The uicontrol
function is not supported in App Designer or in
apps created using the uifigure
function. Instead, for a list of
available components in these contexts, see App Building Components.
c = uicontrol
creates a push button (the default user
interface control) in the current figure, and returns the UIControl
object. If a figure does not exist, then MATLAB® calls the figure
function to create one.
c = uicontrol(
creates a user
interface control with property values specified using one or more name-value pair
arguments. For example, Name,Value
)'Style','checkbox'
creates a check
box.
c = uicontrol(
creates the default
user interface control in the specified parent, instead of defaulting to the current
figure.parent
)
c = uicontrol(
specifies the parent for the user interface control and one or more name-value pair
arguments.parent
,Name,Value
)
Examples
Create Radio Button
Create a radio button by specifying the 'Style'
name-value pair argument as 'radiobutton'
. Label the radio button by
specifying a value for the 'String'
name-value pair argument.
c = uicontrol('Style','radiobutton','String','Option 1');
Create Slider Within Panel
Create a figure and a panel positioned within it. Then, create a
slider within the panel by calling the uicontrol
function with the
panel specified as the parent and 'Style'
specified as
'slider'
. Next, set the slider Value
property
to 0.5
.
f = figure; p = uipanel(f,'Position',[0.1 0.1 0.35 0.65]); c = uicontrol(p,'Style','slider'); c.Value = 0.5;
Code Response to Pop-Up Menu Selection
Create a pop-up menu that displays a list of choices when clicked. Use a callback function to determine the list item selected by the user and display the selection in the MATLAB Command Window.
Save this code as mytemps.m
. This code creates a figure window
with a pop-up menu containing three list items. Then, it uses a callback function to
query the Value
and String
properties of the
pop-up menu and displays the selected item at the command line.
function mytemps f = figure; c = uicontrol(f,'Style','popupmenu'); c.Position = [20 75 60 20]; c.String = {'Celsius','Kelvin','Fahrenheit'}; c.Callback = @selection; function selection(src,event) val = c.Value; str = c.String; str{val}; disp(['Selection: ' str{val}]); end end
Run the program to generate the figure and its contents.
mytemps
Choose a different menu item to change the selection. For example, if you select
"Kelvin" from the pop-up menu, the command line then displays the text
Selection: Kelvin
.
Code Response to Button Click
Create a push button that plots data when you click it.
Save this code as pushbuttonPlot.m
. This code creates a figure
window that contains axes and a push button. Each time you click the button, the
callback function executes and plots a bar chart of five normally distributed random
numbers.
function pushbuttonPlot f = figure; ax = axes(f); ax.Units = 'pixels'; ax.Position = [75 75 325 280] c = uicontrol; c.String = 'Plot Data'; c.Callback = @plotButtonPushed; function plotButtonPushed(src,event) bar(randn(1,5)); end end
Run pushbuttonPlot
, and then click the push button. MATLAB plots the data.
Bring Editable Text Field into Focus
Create an editable text field and bring it into focus by passing its
function handle into the uicontrol
function. This action causes the
cursor to become active, and blink, within the editable text field.
c = uicontrol('Style','edit'); uicontrol(c);
Input Arguments
parent
— Parent object
current figure (default) | Figure
object | Panel
object | ButtonGroup
object | Tab
object
Parent object, specified as a Figure
object created using the
figure
function, or as one of its child
containers: a Panel
, ButtonGroup
, or
Tab
object. Use this argument to specify the parent container when
creating a user interface control.
c
— User interface control object
UIControl
object
User interface control object, specified as a UIControl
object.
Use this argument to specify a previously defined user interface control that you wish
to bring into focus.
Example: uicontrol(c)
Name-Value Arguments
Specify optional pairs of arguments as
Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN
, where Name
is
the argument name and Value
is the corresponding value.
Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the
pairs does not matter.
Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose
Name
in quotes.
Example: uicontrol('Style','checkbox')
specifies a check box as the
style of the user interface control.
Note
The properties listed here are only a subset. For a complete list, see UIControl Properties.
Style
— Style of UIControl
object
'pushbutton'
(default) | 'togglebutton'
| 'checkbox'
| 'radiobutton'
| ...
Style of UIControl
object, specified as a value from the
following table.
Style Property Value | Example | Description |
---|---|---|
'pushbutton' | Button that appears to depress until you release the mouse button. | |
'togglebutton' |
| Button that looks like a push button, but that visually indicates its state: selected or cleared. |
'checkbox' |
| Option that can be selected or cleared independently. |
'radiobutton' |
| Option that is intended to form part of a group, such that, when selected, it clears the other options within the group. To implement mutually exclusive
behavior for a set of radio buttons, place them within a |
'edit' | Editable text field. To enable
multiple lines of text, set the | |
'text' | Static text field. Use static text to label other user interface controls, provide information to the user, or indicate values associated with a slider. To
make static text respond to mouse clicks, set the | |
'slider' | "Thumb" button that the user moves along a horizontal or vertical bar. The location of the button along the bar indicates a value within a specified range. | |
'listbox' | List of items from which the user can select one or more items. Unlike pop-up menus, list boxes do not expand when clicked. To enable multiple selection of
items, set the | |
'popupmenu' | Pop-up menu (also known as drop-down menu) that expands to display a list of choices. When closed, a pop-up menu indicates the current choice. Use pop-up menus when you want to provide a number of mutually exclusive choices. | |
'frame' | The
'frame' option is not recommended. Use uipanel or uibuttongroup instead of
frames. GUIDE continues to support frames in UIs that contain them, but the
frame component does not appear in the GUIDE Layout Editor component
palette. |
String
— Text to display
character vector | cell array of character vectors | string array | categorical array | ...
Text to display, specified as a character vector, cell array of character vectors,
string array, categorical array, or pipe-delimited row vector. The Style
property dictates the array format you can use.
Style Property | Supported Array Formats | Examples |
---|---|---|
'pushbutton' | Character vector Cell array of character vectors String array Categorical array |
|
'togglebutton' | ||
'checkbox' | ||
'radiobutton' | ||
'edit' | ||
'text' | ||
'listbox' | Character vector Cell array of character vectors String array Categorical array Pipe-delimited row vector |
|
'popupmenu' |
Note
If you specify a cell array or a categorical array for a push button, toggle button, check box, or radio button, MATLAB displays only the first element in the array.
Position
— Location and size
[20 20 60 20]
(default) | [left bottom width height]
Location and size, specified as a four-element vector of the form [left
bottom width height]
. Default measurement units are in pixels. The table
describes each element in the vector.
Element | Description |
---|---|
left | Distance from the inner left edge of the parent container to the outer left edge of the user interface control. |
bottom | Distance from the inner bottom edge of the parent container to the outer bottom edge of the user interface control. |
width | Distance between the right and left outer edges of the user interface control. |
height | Distance between the top and bottom outer edges of the user interface control. |
Position
values are relative to the parent container's
drawable area. The drawable area is the area inside the borders of the container and
does not include the area occupied by the title. If the parent container is a figure,
the drawable area also excludes the menu bar and tool bar.
Value
— Current value
number
Current value, specified as a number. Use to query or modify the status of certain
user interface controls. The table describes the Value
property
in relation to specific UIControl
styles.
Style Property | Description of Value Property |
---|---|
'togglebutton' |
|
'checkbox' |
|
'radiobutton' |
|
'slider' | Value associated with the thumb location along the slider bar. |
'listbox' | Array index corresponding to the selected item in the list box. A value
of 1 (default) corresponds to the first item in the list.
When multiple items are selected, the Value property
stores the row indexes as a vector. |
'popupmenu' | Array index corresponding to the selected item in the pop-up menu. A
value of 1 (default) corresponds to the first item in the
pop-up menu. |
Version History
Introduced before R2006a
See Also
Functions
Properties
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