How can I set the labels of multiple axes without iteration?

Hello all,

I have a figure with multiple uipanels, each with its own axes. How can I set the labels of all the pannels' axes at once without having to use iterations? I am assuming that the axes of all pannels should have the same label.

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Cam Salzberger]

Hello Yazan,

If, as you create the axes, you save the handles to one reference axes array, you can easily set the labels like so:

xlabel(axesArray, "LabelX")
ylabel(axesArray, "LabelY")

If you don't have an array of axes, and it's not feasible to get one while setting up the figures, you can use findobj to get that list:

axesArray = findobj(figureHandle, "Type", "axes");

This searches all nested children by default, though you can set limits on that.

-Cam

[Yazan]

Hello Cam,

I've already tried your suggestion, but Matlab is throwing an error. Check the simple script below, please.

close all

f = figure('Units', 'normalized');
% uipanels
p1 = uipanel(f, 'Position', [0 0 0.5 1]);
p2 = uipanel(f, 'Position', [0.5 0 0.5 1]);
% axes
ax1 = axes(p1); ax2 = axes(p2);

xlabel([ax1, ax2], 'XLabel');

% or
% xlabel(findobj(f, 'Type', 'axes'), 'XLabel')

[Cam Salzberger]

That runs just fine for me. What MATLAB release are you using? What error do you see (full text with stack-trace, if applicable)?

[Yazan]

Hello Cam. I am using R2019b. I am getting the following error message:

Incorrect number of input arguments.

[Cam Salzberger]

Well, it looks like they made xlabel vectorized at some point, but not in R2019b. So here's a quick workaround, if you don't want to use loops.

allAxes = [ax1, ax2];
% or
allAxes = findobj(f, 'Type', 'axes');
arrayfun(@(hAx) xlabel(hAx, 'XLabel'), allAxes)

-Cam