MATLAB Creating Graphical User Interfaces

Lay Out a UI Programmatically

Lay Out a UI Programmatically

You can adjust the size and location of components, and manage front-to-back order

of grouped components by setting certain property values. This topic explains how

to use these properties to get the layout you want. It also explains how to use the

SizeChangedFcn callback to control the UI’s resizing behavior.

In this section...

“Component Placement and Sizing” on page 10- 31

“Managing the Layout in Resizable UIs” on page 10- 36

“Manage the Stacking Order of Grouped Components” on page 10- 39

Component Placement and Sizing

A UI layout consists of a figure and one or more components that you place inside

the figure. Accurate placement and sizing of each component involves setting certain

properties and understanding how the inner and outer boundaries of the figure relate to

each other.

Location and Size of Outer Bounds and Drawable Area

The area inside the figure, which contains the UI components, is called the drawable

area. The drawable area is inside the outer bounds of the figure, but does not include

the menu bar or tool bar. You can control the location and size of the drawable area by

setting the figure’s Position property as a four-element row vector. The first two elements

of this vector specify the location. The last two elements specify the size. By default, the

figure’s Position values are in pixels.

This command creates a figure and sets the Position value. The left edge of the drawable

area is 258 pixels from the left side of the screen. Its bottom edge is 132 pixels up from

the bottom of the screen. Its size is 560 pixels wide by 420 pixels high:

f = figure('Position',[258 132 560 420]);