UICOMPONENT - expands uicontrol to all Java classes
UICOMPONENT is intended as a direct replacement of Matlab's built-in UICONTROL and JAVACOMPONENT functions. It accepts all parameters and styles that UICONTROL accepts, as well as any other displayable Java (Swing/AWT) component class. The calling convention and syntax of UICONTROL were preserved for full backwards compatibility.
UICOMPONENT uses the built-in UICONTROL whenever possible (i.e, for all the standard styles), and uses JAVACOMPONENT to create and display all the other java classes. UICOMPONENT supports the entire Swing/AWT and any user-defined classes, in several equivalent case-insensitive formats. For example, 'Spinner', 'spiNNer', 'JSpinner' and 'javax.swing.jspinner' are all equivalent and recognized.
Notable new styles that are now available (unavailable in built-in UICONTROL): spinner, slider, editable comboBox, passwordField, tree, table, fileChooser, colorChooser, progressBar, applet. But there are so many more - whatever is available in Java is now seamlessly available in your Matlab GUI.
Examples (more examples in attached screenshot & in the help comment):
- uicomponent('style','jspinner','value',7); % simple spinner with initial value
- uicomponent('style','javax.swing.jslider','tag','myObj'); % simple horizontal slider
- uicomponent('style','JComboBox',{1,pi,'text'},'editable',true); % editable drop-down
The screenshot can be recreated using the createScreenshot script that is included in this submission. It is provided to illustrate the use of UICOMPONENT for various different components.
Callbacks:
Over 30 callback hooks are exposed to the user for all components (the exact list depends on the specific java component used). These callbacks include mouse movement/clicks, keyboard events, focus gain/loss, data changes etc.
Warning:
This code heavily relies on undocumented and unsupported Matlab functionality. It works on Matlab 7+, but use at your own risk!
Technical description:
http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/javacomponent
Change log:
See the bottom of this page
Bugs and suggestions:
Please send to Yair Altman (altmany at gmail dot com)
Cite As
Yair Altman (2021). UICOMPONENT - expands uicontrol to all Java classes (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/14583-uicomponent-expands-uicontrol-to-all-java-classes), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .
Comments and Ratings (44)
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Acknowledgements
Inspired: BiofilmQ, tweak, Drag & Drop functionality for JAVA GUI components, attachScrollPanelTo - add scroll-panel to a uipanel or axes, statusbar, Using Java Swing components in MATLAB, passwordEntryDialog, UISplitPane - Split a container (figure/frame/uipanel) into two resizable sub-containers, SpinnerDemo, Control Google Earth Milktruck from Matlab, selectcolor.m, scatool
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Many thanks for this toolbox. It's excellent and very helpful for making GUI in Matlab.
As a note on customising spinner, for example in floating point. Here is an example, which takes me a while to find out.
-------------------------
jModel = javax.swing.SpinnerNumberModel(0.5, 0.1, 1, 0.1); % value, min, max, step size
hspin = uicomponent('style','jspinner', jModel); % spinner with model specified
set(hspin ,'units','norm', 'position', [0.2,0.2,0.05,0.03]);
set(hspin ,'StateChangedCallback',{@spinner_Callback, 1}); % with argument 1 specified
function spinner_Callback(jSpinner,jEventData, state)
% Your code for the callback function
This is a really nice tool, and pretty straightforward to use. Thanks!!
I've been using the filechooser style, though I can't seem to be able to change the initial working directory. It seems to require a "sun.awt.shell.Win32ShellFolder2" class object, not sure how to do that.
Great upgrade Yair. Thank you. Is there any way you can add support for HG2 uicontainer subclasses by checking isa(hParent,'matlab.ui.container.Container')? This is an undocumented class, but it will enable us to use your toolbox in conjunction with GUI layout toolbox. This would be a perfect combination.
Problem is with line 470:
elseif ~any(strcmpi(regexprep(class(hParent),'.*\.',''),{'figure','uicontainer','uiflowcontainer','uigridcontainer'}))
Should be:
elseif ~any(strcmpi(regexprep(class(hParent),'.*\.',''),{'figure','uicontainer','uiflowcontainer','uigridcontainer', 'panel'}))
Very useful and works fine with HG1 and HG2. A question how can I change BackGroundColor ForeGroundColor FontSize FontStyle... Such properties are not directly recognized through standard name/value pairs.
Many Thanks to Yair
It did fix the error, but the Layout.Cell(1,3) object is not visible on the figure. Any idea why.
Thanks for the input.
Your specified parent handle is probably wrong in some way. Try using gcf instead of Layout.Cell(1,3) to verify this.
handles.txtSeqFile = uicomponent( ...
'style','javax.swing.JTextField', ...
'parent',Layout.Cell(1,3), ...
'Tag', 'txtSeqFile', ...
'MouseClickedCallback',{@(handle,event)xMouseClick(handle,1)});
%----error after executing above line----
Error using javacomponentdoc_helper>applyArgumentsAndShow (line 197)
Invalid input
Error in javacomponentdoc_helper (line 35)
Error in javacomponent (line 111)
[hcomponent, hcontainer] = javacomponentdoc_helper(varargin{:});
Error in uicomponent (line 197)
[jcomp, hcontainer] = javacomponent(javaComp,position,parent);
What is causing this????
Thanks!!
Fixed - download the latest and retry.
Thanks for this great tool, Yair.
I have problems using the latest version, though: In both HG (2014a) and HG2 (2014b), i get an error using the following syntax, which worked before:
h.fig = figure();
h.menu = uicomponent('Parent',h.fig,'style','JComboBox',{'A','B','C'},'editable',true);
h.menu.JavaComponent.getSelectedItem
error is: Attempt to reference field of non-structure array.
Do I have to change the syntax in the new version?
Thanks, Daniel
Thanks a lot Yair!
@Tom - I've updated the utility for R2014b. Download the latest version. It should be backward compatible with earlier Matlab releases as well.
Great submission. Getting errors when using with R2014b with all the graphics changes in that release. Any plans to update to support that release?
Wow!
A simple and amazing way to updgrade the UI.
Thank you
Wow!
A simple and amazing way to updgrade the UI.
Thank yoy
Okay, I figured out the filter and the 'Open' and 'Cancel' buttons, but still can't figure out the icons.
Thank you so much for this submission; I'm finding that it's very powerful and well thought out. I was wondering if someone could help me, though. I'm trying to create my own file chooser so that I'm able to add some check boxes to it. I've got that part down, but I'm not sure how to correctly create my own file filter, add callbacks to the 'Open' and 'Cancel' push buttons, and add icons to the buttons to the right of the directory selection drop down menu. I've tried setting the 'ActionPerformedCallback' property, but for some reason the callback function is only called when I click the 'Cancel' button.
Awesome job, but can u please tell me why uicontrol objects not hide when their position is out of parent uipanel area.
It may not be obvious to the novice, but one experienced builder appreciates having access to all the "stuff" in a uniform interface. YMMV. (Thanks, Yair!)
Can someone explain to a novice GUI builder the significance of this download?
Great idea!
It is fine!
I knew that in Matlab it is possible to do such, but you have made it very well! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing this code with us, Yair. Whenever I need a java thingy that is not available in MATLAB, I use uicomponent.
can these components be made transparent for e.g overlaying a transparent ticklabeled slider over a colorbar?
the best gui related submission yet
Useful tool
Great!
Oh, sorry, I mistyped, I meaned ! not ?
Great TOOl ?
After changing line 256 from strcmpi to strncmpi, because I use 'Visible' instead of 'vis', this excellent tool has made it to my daily use. Thank you very much!
Excellent. Produces great GUIs that work on both Windows and Mac without needing tweaking for each platform.
This is an excellent tool. It works very well with a number of components I've tried.
This is really fascinating. Note your example 1 and 2 should read:
uicomponent('Style','edit','String','hello');
and
uicomponent('Parent', fig2, 'Style', 'edit','String','hello');
instead of 'uicontrol'
I have not found any obvious issues although with the extensive use of non-documented features I'll have to test more extensively but this is a really nice wrapper for uicontrol and javacomponent. A lot of goodies in the code for anyone interested in incorporating Swing components into their interfaces.