MATLAB®

GUIDE: A Brief Introduction

Laying Out a GUI

GUIDE, the MATLAB^® graphical user interface development environment, provides a set of tools for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). These tools simplify the process of laying out and programming GUIs.

The GUIDE Layout Editor enables you to populate a GUI by clicking and dragging GUI components — such as buttons, text fields, sliders, axes, and so on — into the layout area. It also enables you to create menus, context menus, and a toolbar for the GUI.

Other tools, which are accessible from the Layout Editor, enable you to size the GUI, modify component look and feel, align components, set tab order, view a hierarchical list of the component objects, and set GUI options.

The following topic, Laying Out a Simple GUI, uses some of these tools to show you the basics of laying out a GUI. GUIDE Tools Summary describes the tools.

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Programming a GUI

When you save your GUI layout, GUIDE automatically generates an M-file that you can use to control how the GUI works. This M-file provides code to initialize the GUI and contains a framework for the GUI callbacks—the routines that execute in response to user-generated events such as a mouse click. Using the M-file editor, you can add code to the callbacks to perform the functions you want. Programming a Simple GUI shows you what code to add to the example M-file to make the GUI work.

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Creating a Simple GUI with GUIDE

Example: Simple GUI