Create and activate figures by name

Finds and activates, or creates, figure with user-specified name.
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Updated 8 Jan 2015

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Finds and activates, or creates, figure with user-specified name.

If no name is provided, creates figure named "untitledn" (where n is incremented to result in a unique name).

SYNTAX:
togglefig('My Figure');
If figure named 'My Figure' exists, it will be activated (brought to the front and shown). Otherwise, it will be created.

h = togglefig('My Figure');
Also returns the handle to the specified or created figure.

togglefig;
Creates and activates new figure named untitled1, untitled2, ...
Note: You can subsequently activate these figures with, for instance, togglefig('untitled1').

OTHER EXAMPLES:
NOTE: This example requires the Image Processing Toolbox
im = imread('cameraman.tif');
for ii = 1:10
thresh = ii/20;
togglefig('Threshold');
imshow(im2bw(im,thresh));
title(sprintf('Threshold = %0.2f',thresh));
pause(1)
end
Motivation:
I've found this to be exceptionally useful in algorith-development
mode, particularly when iterating on cells in the cell-mode editor. (I
use this function in almost every mfile I write these days.)

Cite As

Brett Shoelson (2024). Create and activate figures by name (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/18220-create-and-activate-figures-by-name), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2007b
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
Categories
Find more on Graphics Objects in Help Center and MATLAB Answers
Acknowledgements

Inspired: Cell Cycle Analysis, Cell Cycle Analysis

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Version Published Release Notes
1.3.0.0

R2014b ready.

1.2.0.0

Fixes a bug when togglefig is called with no input arguments. Thanks to Danilo for pointing it out!

1.1.0.0

I added a new (optional) input argument that triggers a CLF (clear-figure) command.

1.0.0.0

Minor modification to suppress handle generation if no output is requested.