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| Contents | Index |
| Learn more about MATLAB |
New features and changes introduced in this version are organized by these topics:
For an overview of the major new features in the MATLAB Desktop Tools and Development Environment area, watch this video demo. Another way to access the demo is by selecting the Demos tab in the Help browser, and then selecting MATLAB > New Features in Version 7.8.
The matlab command to start MATLAB now supports the -singleCompThread option on all platforms. When you specify this option, you limit MATLAB to a single computational thread. By default, if you do not specify this option, MATLAB makes use of the multithreading capabilities of the computer on which it is running.
New features and changes introduced in Version 7.8 (R2009a) are:
On UNIX platforms (except Apple® Macintosh), MATLAB now uses the Mozilla® Firefox® browser by default to display documents or Web sites in a system browser. If you want MATLAB to use a different system browser, use the new System Web browser setting in Web preferences to specify it. In addition, the web function with the –browser option now determines the system browser to use from the preference. For more information, click the Help button in the Web preference pane, or see Web Preferences.
Compatibility Considerations. In previous versions, the default system browser on UNIX platforms was Netscape Navigator®; it is now Firefox. If you do not have Firefox on your system, when MATLAB tries to use a system browser, it produces a warning. To correct the problem, use Web preferences to specify a system browser that is installed.
In previous versions, if you wanted to use a different browser, you specified it in the docopt.m file. Starting in R2009a, MATLAB ignores the browser specified in docopt.m. If you have code that relies on docopt.m, your code still runs, but it produces a warning. Remove the calls from your code. In future versions, the code will not run and will produce an error.
If you have your own docopt.m file, delete it and either use the new default, Firefox, or specify a different system browser using Web preferences.
If you want to access the Internet from MATLAB, and your network uses a firewall or another means of protection that restricts Internet access, you now can ensure your proxy server settings are working correctly. Click the new Test Connection button in Web preferences, and MATLAB will use the proxy settings you specified in Web preferences to attempt to access the Internet. For more information about the proxy server features, click the Help button in the Web preferences pane, or see Web Preferences.
The Command Window and Editor now support tab completion for class directories. In addition, the Command Window supports tab completion for class file names. For details, see Tab Completion for Class Folders and File Names.
New features and changes introduced in Version 7.8 (R2009a) are:
When you start MATLAB, the Help browser no longer automatically opens if you had it open when you last quit MATLAB.
Compatibility Considerations. In previous versions, the Help browser opened at MATLAB startup if it had been open when you last quit MATLAB. If you want the Help browser to automatically open at startup, use a startup option. For example, you can include a helpbrowser statement in your startup.m file. For more information, see Startup Options.
If you include a statement in a finish.m file that closes the Help browser automatically whenever you quit MATLAB, you now can remove that statement because MATLAB now performs the action by default.
The docsearch function, which you can use to search the documentation, now accepts multiple words as input, without requiring the function form of the syntax. For example, in previous versions, you used docsearch('word1 word2'), but now you can use docsearch word1 word2. With the new form of the syntax, you can use all options for docsearch, such as wildcards (for example, docsearch wor*) and exact phrases (for example, docsearch "word1 word2").
To find out if you are currently running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of MATLAB, select Help > About MATLAB, and view the value in the resulting About MATLAB dialog box. You might need to know the version if you want to take advantage of the benefits of 64-bit MATLAB, or if you want to use files that depend on the version, such as MEX-files.
The About MATLAB dialog box also shows the architecture value, for example, (win32) or (win64). You use this value for the arch option of the mex function.
For more information, see Getting Version and License Information.
These are the enhancements to the Current Directory browser:
You can use the new View menu to choose the columns to display, to specify the sort order for a column, and to apply grouping for any attribute. In the previous version, you performed these actions using the column header and its context menus, which you can still do (but only on Microsoft Windows platforms). For more information, see Sorting and Grouping Files and Folders in the Current Folder Browser.
A new Description column displays the brief description for files and directories in the current directory. To show the column, use View > Choose Columns. Descriptions include the first help line in an M-file, and a model file's description, which is useful because you do not need to start the Simulink software to view it. The description is the same one that appears with the details for a selected file. For more information, see Viewing Help for an M-File.
If you try to rename an M-file in the Current Directory browser to an invalid name, such as *myfile.m, a warning appears, notifying you about the name problem. If you want to run the M-file, change the file name to a valid one. For more information about what an M-file name requires to be valid so you can run it, see Naming M-files.
When you right-click a FIG-file in the Current Directory browser, there is a new option to open the figure in GUIDE.
New features and changes introduced in Version 7.8 (R2009a) are:
Many M-Lint Messages Now Extend to Provide an Explanation and Suggested Action
Integrated Text Editor Option Removed from Editor/Debugger Preferences Panel
When you create an M-File with integrated M-Lint warning and error messages enabled, you can get additional information about many of the messages. When you hover the pointer over an M-Lint indicator that has an extended message, the message appears as a link:
When you click the link, the message window expands to display an explanation and suggested action.
When you click a link within the extended message, the Help browser opens to provide more information. For details, see Using M-Lint Automatic Code Analyzer in the Editor.
You can now filter the list of M-Lint messages in the preferences panel (File > Preferences > M-Lint), to find a message of interest.
For example, you can search for a message:
Containing a string
Corresponding to a particular message ID
Within a given category
With a setting different from the default
Filtering the list of messages can help you see, for example, why certain messages are suppressed, and which messages are disabled. It can be helpful when you want to see the explanation and suggested action for a message, as described in Many M-Lint Messages Now Extend to Provide an Explanation and Suggested Action.
For details about filtering M-Lint messages, see Setting Preferences for M-Lint.
The Block Indent option is no longer available. Previously, this option was available for MATLAB, Java™, and C/C++ programming languages, when you selected File > Preferences > Editor/Debugger > Language.
Note Do not confuse the Block Indent option with the Smart indenting option, which is still provided. |
Compatibility Considerations. To attain the effect of block indenting, you can use the No indent option and indent lines manually using the Tab and space keys.
The MATLAB Editor no longer supports EmacsLink. In previous releases, you could choose File > Preferences > Editor/Debugger, and then (if you correctly registered EmacsLink with MATLAB) you could select Integrated text editor. This option is no longer available.
The File and Directory Comparisons Tool now provides links to help you quickly navigate to the areas of differences. This is useful for large files that have too many lines to fit on the screen. At the top of the page is a link to the first difference. In addition, each set of differences has an up arrow that you click to go to the previous set of differences, and a down arrow you click to go to the next set of differences. For details, see Navigating from One Difference to the Next.
When the Find Next operation for searching files in the Editor reaches the end of a file, it automatically wraps around to search from the beginning of the file for the text you specified. In previous releases, the Wrap around option was off by default. This meant that if you were in the middle of a file and the text you were searching for appeared before your current position, Find Next would not find that text.
Because it is more convenient to have this option on, it is now selected by default. To access this option, select Edit > Find and Replace.
For more information, see Finding Text in Files.
The bottom of the Profile Summary Report now indicates the amount of time spent in profiling overhead, when possible. For details, see Profile Summary Report.
New features and changes introduced in Version 7.8 (R2009a) are:
Two new options are available to specify how you want figures captured for published documents: entireGUIWindow and entireFigureWindow. The entireGUIWindow option is appropriate for most publishing purposes and is now the default. The entireFigureWindow option is appropriate when you want to capture all the details, including the title bar and other window decorations in your published document. Use this option, for example, if you are creating a tutorial on using MATLAB software. In the GUI, you can select these options from the Figure capture method setting in the Edit M-file Configuration dialog box. In the publish function, you can specify these options with figureSnapMethod.
For more information, see Figure capture method and the publish reference page.
When you publish a document to HTML, you can include dynamic links. Dynamic links are links to files on the MATLAB path. They are called dynamic links because MATLAB evaluates them when the reader of your document clicks on one. To use a dynamic link, the reader must open the HTML file in the MATLAB Web browser.
For more information, see Inserting Dynamic Links.
 | Version 7.8 (R2009a) MATLAB Software | Mathematics, MATLAB Version 7.8 (R2009a) |  |
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