Creating Graphical User Interfaces

Laying Out GUIs - The Layout Editor

The Layout Editor enables you to select GUI components (uicontrol objects) from the component palette, at the left side of Layout Editor, and arrange them in the layout area, to the right. When you press the Run button, the functioning GUI appears outside the Layout Editor.

To start the Layout Editor, first open the GUIDE Quick Start dialog by entering guide at the MATLAB prompt. Click OK in the dialog to open a blank GUI template in the Layout Editor, as shown in the following picture.

If you want to load an existing GUI for editing, type

• guide filename.fig
  

or use Open... from the File menu on the Layout Editor.

Placing Objects In the Layout Area

Select the type of component you want to place in your GUI by clicking on it in the component palette. The cursor changes to a cross, which you can then use to select the position of the upper-left corner of the control, or you can set the size of the control by clicking in the layout area and then dragging the cursor to the lower-right corner before releasing the mouse button.

Note that components in the Layout Editor are not active. The next section describes how to generate a functioning GUI.

Running the GUI

To run the GUI you design in the Layout Editor, select Run in the Tools menu or click the green Run button on the toolbar.

When you run a GUI, the following occurs:

• GUIDE first prompts you to save both the M-file and FIG-file with the dialog shown in the following figure.

  

• If you click Yes and you have not saved the GUI previously, GUIDE opens a Save As dialog box so you can select a name for the M-file GUIDE is going to generate.
• Clicking Save in the Save As dialog box, GUIDE saves the companion FIG-file with the same name as the M-file, but with a .fig extension.
• If an M-file with the same name exists, GUIDE prompts you to replace or append to the existing code in the M-file.

  

• Replace - writes over the existing file.

  Append - inserts new callbacks for components added since the last save and make changes to the code based on change made from the Application Options dialog.

• If the directory in which you saved the GUI is not on the MATLAB path, GUIDE opens a dialog box with three options, as shown in the following figure.

  

• Change MATLAB current directory - changes the MATLAB current directory to the directory where you saved the GUI.

  Add directory to the top of the MATLAB path - adds the directory where you saved the GUI to the top of the MATLAB path

  Add directory to the bottom of the MATLAB path - adds the directory where you saved the GUI to the bottom of the MATLAB path

• MATLAB executes the M-file to display the GUI. The options specified in the Application Options dialog are functional in the GUI.

Note    GUIDE automatically saves both the M-file and the FIG-file when you run the GUI.

GUIDE Layout Tools

Saving the Layout