How do I copy a panel from one figure to another?

I have a figure A.fig and it has a panel A.pan, which is on A.fig. I have a pushbutton on A.fig that creates a new figure, B.fig, with its own panel, B.pan.

I have tons of uicontrols on both A.pan and B.pan. I have a pushbutton on B.fig that, when you hit it, should close B.fig and copy its contents (everything on B.pan) over to A.pan.

I've checked out findobj/findall, setappdata/getappdata, guidata, etc. but have not found a solution. The problem comes from A and B being completely separated. Also, I'm having a hard time figuring out what A and B are. I mean, they look like structures, but then A.fig.Parent will return a graphics root object, yet somehow I can have A.btn1, A.btn2, A.sidebar, A.text1, A.text2, A.radio1, A.radio2, and even more, which are definitely not root properties and makes me think I have a struct. I'm guessing A.fig.Parent is not the structure it belongs in, but then how do I access that structure?

Right now, I have the pushbutton on B so that it closes B.fig and makes A.pan visible, but A.pan is not a clone of B.pan, as I would like it to be.

Any help on how what A and B are, how to access them (maybe with findobj or something), and how to move the panel contents of B.pan to A.pan?

Answer 1

[Dimitris Iliou]

If I understand correctly, you want to copy the contents of the panel in figure B to the panel in figure A, and after that close figure B.

In order to access A while in B you could use findobj. The easiest way to do that is by using Tags.

For example, if you create a figure using the following code:

 A = figure('Tag','Main');

You should be able to find that handle using findobj in the following way:

 h = findobj('-regexp','Tag','Main');

In order to achieve your workflow, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Locate the handle for the panel in A (call it hp_A)
2. Locate the handle for the panel in B (call it hp_B)
3. To copy the Children (uicontrols) from hp_B to hp_A, you just have to set their Parent from hp_B to hp_A.

For example, the code for that would look something like this:

   hp_B.Children(1).Parent = hp_A;

Also, you can find more information on Graphics Objects in the following documentation links:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/graphics-objects.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/examples/graphics-objects.html