Opening desktop tools

To maximize your work area, keep open only those tools you use. To open a tool, select the tool name from the Desktop menu. Opened tools have a check mark before them in the menu. The tool appears in the location it occupied the last time it was open. The sizes of other tools adjust to accommodate the newly opened tool. See more details online.

Navigating among desktop tools

The Window menu displays all open desktop tools and documents, as well as opened tools for other MathWorks™ products. Select an entry in the Window menu to go directly to that tool or document. Another way to access an undocked desktop tool is by selecting its entry in the Microsoft^® Windows^® task bar, or the equivalent for your platform. See also Keyboard Shortcuts and more details online.

Closing desktop tools

To close a desktop tool, select the item in the Desktop menu, which clears the check mark in the menu and closes the tool. Or click the Close box (X) in the title bar for the tool, or select File > Close for the tool. See more details online.

Resizing tools

To resize tools in the MATLAB^® desktop, drag the separator bar, which is the bar between tools. You can hide the title bars for tools in the desktop so the tools use less space—select Desktop > Titles, and then hover over a title bar to see a ToolTip containing the name of the tool. See more details online.

Moving tools within the desktop

To move a tool in the MATLAB desktop, drag the title bar of the tool toward where you want the tool to be located. As you drag the tool, an outline of it appears. When the outline nears a position where you can keep it, the outline snaps to that location. Release the mouse button. The tool stays at the new location. Other tools in the desktop resize to accommodate the new configuration. The inside edges of the desktop container and tools all act as if they are "sticky," so you can position a tool along any inside edge. See more details online.

Moving tools out of the desktop (undocking)

Move a tool out of the desktop to make it larger or easier to work with. To move a tool outside the MATLAB desktop (called undocking), select the tool to make it active, and then select Desktop > Undock > Toolname. The tool appears outside the MATLAB desktop and an entry for it appears in the Windows task bar or the equivalent for your platform. Tools within the desktop resize accordingly. Another way to undock is by using the Undock button in the tool's title bar. See more details online.

Moving tools into the desktop (docking)

To move a tool that is outside the MATLAB desktop into the desktop, click the Dock button in the tool's menu bar, or select Desktop > Dock Toolname. See more details online.

Grouping tools together

You can group tools so that they overlay each other in the MATLAB desktop. To group tools together, drag the title bar of one tool in the desktop on top of the title bar of another tool in the desktop. To make a tool active, click its name in the title bar. See more details online.

Maximizing tools in the desktop

To resize the active tool so it occupies the entire MATLAB desktop, double-click the tool's title bar; to return to the layout prior to maximizing, double-click the title bar of the maximized tool. Alternatively, use the menus: select Desktop > Maximize Toolname. To return to the layout prior to maximizing, select Desktop > Restore Toolname. You can also use the Maximize button and Restore button in the tool's title bar. This feature is not supported on Apple^® Macintosh^® platforms.

Minimizing tools in the desktop

You can minimize any tool in the desktop, which creates a button along an edge of the desktop that represents the tool. Select Desktop > Minimize Toolname. You can also use the Minimize button in the tool's title bar. The tool's button appears along the edge indicated by the minimize arrow in the menu item or on the button. To move the tool's button to a different edge, right-click the button, and from the context menu, select an edge. To view or use a minimized tool, hover over or click the button—this temporarily opens the tool in the desktop. Once you are finished using the tool, click the button or another tool and the tool is again shown only as a button along the edge. To return the tool to the desktop layout position it occupied before being minimized, double-click the button. Alternatively, restore it by right-clicking the button and selecting Restore > Toolname, or use the Restore button in the tool's title bar. This feature is not supported on Macintosh platforms.

Opening documents

When you open a document for use with MATLAB, it opens in the associated tool. If the tool is not already open, it opens when you open the document and appears in the position it occupied when last used. Figures open undocked, regardless of the last position occupied.

How to open a document depends on the document type:

• M-file: Select File > Open and select the M-file. It opens in the Editor.

• Workspace variable: In the Workspace browser, double-click the variable. It opens in the Variable Editor.

• HTML file: In the Current Directory browser, double-click the file. It opens in the MATLAB Web browser.

• Figure: Type plot or use another graphics function. The plot appears in a figure window.

There are many additional ways to open documents. See more details online.

Navigating among documents — the document bar

When more than one document is open within a tool, each document is either maximized (the default), or arranged so that multiple documents are visible at once. Click a document that is in view to make it the active document. See also Keyboard Shortcuts.

Use the document bar to go to a document that is open but not in view. The names of all open documents appear in the document bar. Select a document name in the document bar to make that document active. To show the document bar if it is not open, select Desktop > Document Bar > Bar Position and select the position for it, for example, Right. See more details online.

Entries for undocked documents appear in the Windows task bar, or the equivalent for your platform. Click the task bar entry for a document to make that document active.

Positioning, moving, and resizing documents

To position open documents within their tool, select an arrangement from the Window menu when the tool is active, or by using the equivalent toolbar button for Maximize, Float, Left/Right Tile, Top/Bottom Tile, and Tile. You can also define a specific grid arrangement using Window > Tile.... On the Macintosh platform, the tile option might not be available in the Window menu so use the Tile button instead.

With the tile arrangements, you refine the document position by moving the pointer over the handle ( ) on the separator bar. A Close box then appears. When you click the Close box between two open documents, both documents stay open, but one moves on top of the other. When you click the Close box between a document and an empty tile, the empty tile closes.

To move a document in a tiled arrangement, drag the title bar of a document to another tile. To resize tiled documents, drag the separator bar between the documents. See also the Editor's Split Screen Display, which allows you to view two different parts of the same file simultaneously.

To move or resize maximized documents, you move or resize their tool.

See more details online.

Closing documents

To close a document, click the Close box in the document's title bar. After closing all the documents in a tool, the tool remains open with no documents in it. If you select the Close box for the tool, all documents in that tool close.

In the Editor, when you close a file that has unsaved changes, a prompt appears asking if you want to save the document. To close a file without saving changes and without seeing the save prompt, use Ctrl when you click the document's Close box. See more details online.

Moving documents and tools out of the desktop (undocking)

To undock all documents in a tool from the desktop, click the Undock button in the tool's title bar. The tool and its documents move outside of the desktop. See more details online.

To undock a document from its tool, click the Undock button for the document. The Undock button is either in the document's title bar, menu bar, or toolbar, depending on the document type and whether or not the document is within the desktop or is in its tool outside of the desktop.

Undocked documents have entries in the Windows task bar (or the equivalent for your platform).

Docking documents and tools

When you dock a document, it moves to the position in the tool that it occupied before you undocked the document. To dock a document, click the Dock button in the document's menu bar. See more details online.

Grouping documents in a tool outside the desktop

To group all of the documents for a tool together outside of the desktop, undock the tool from the desktop, not just the documents.

If you have already undocked all of the documents and closed the empty tool that had contained them, select Desktop > Dock All in Editor, for example. This moves all the documents into the tool in the desktop. Then undock the tool.