MATLAB Creating Graphical User Interfaces

Customize Tabbing Behavior in a Programmatic App

In this section...

“How Tabbing Works” on page 9-34

“Default Tab Order” on page 9-34

“Change the Tab Order in the uipanel” on page 9-36

How Tabbing Works

The tab order is the order in which UI components acquire focus when the user presses

the keyboard Tab key. Focus is generally denoted by a border or a dotted border.

Tab order is determined separately for the children of each parent. For example, child

components of the figure window have their own tab order. Child components of each

panel or button group also have their own tab order.

If, in tabbing through the components at one level, a user tabs to a panel or button group,

then the tabbing sequences through the components of the panel or button group before

returning to the level from which the panel or button group was reached. For example, if

a figure window contains a panel that contains three push buttons and the user tabs to

the panel, then the tabbing sequences through the three push buttons before returning to

the figure.

NoteYou cannot tab to axes and static text components. You cannot determine

programmatically which component has focus.

Default Tab Order

The default tab order for each level is the order in which you create the components at

that level.

The following code creates a UI that contains a pop-up menu with a static text label, a

panel with three push buttons, and an axes.

fh = figure('Position',[200 200 450 270]);

pmh = uicontrol(fh,'Style','popupmenu',...

'String',{'peaks','membrane','sinc'},...

9 Lay Out a Programmatic UI