Conversion of App Designer uielements to "regular ones" #6

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1. Dev-iL

   added

   enhancement

   help wanted

   on Apr 19, 2016
2. sco1

   added a commit that references this issue on Apr 25, 2016

   Refactor, add skeleton for extra code conversion

   ...

   6331883
3. sco1 commented on Apr 25, 2016

   

   sco1

   on Apr 25, 2016

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   A caveat to this conversion is that the GUIs will still likely require R2014b or newer. The App Designer makes extensive use of dot notation to access properties of UI objects rather than set or get. A warning to this effect will be included for users running mlapp2classdef in MATLAB versions prior to R2014b.

   Though a fun project idea on its own, creating a parser to robustly handle these compatibility issues is beyond the scope of this project.
4. sco1

   added a commit that references this issue on Apr 25, 2016

   Add baseline support for UI object conversion

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   fa6d7c4
5. sco1 commented on Apr 25, 2016

   

   sco1

   on Apr 25, 2016

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   Another consideration is that a lot of the object properties and callbacks are new to R2016a, which isn't something that can be reliably caught without significant effort
6. Dev-iL commented on Apr 25, 2016

   

   Dev-iL

   on Apr 25, 2016

   Last edited by Dev-iL

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   For posterity: it may be possible to convert some App Designer elements to Java Swing components, e.g.:

   %% List of JComponents:
   % https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/JComponent.html
   
   %% Spinner - https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/JSpinner.html
   jSp = javaObjectEDT('javax.swing.JSpinner');
   % Get available methods & fields:
   M = methods(jSp); 
   F = fields(jSp); % fields often contain the allowable settings for methods.
   % Set some properties:
   jSp.setAlignmentX(jSp.LEFT_ALIGNMENT);
   % Display component
   [jSpinner, hSpContainer] = javacomponent(jSp,'South');
   % https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/SwingConstants.html
   
   %% Scrollbar (example based on Altman-2012)
   % Create and initialize a JScrollBar object 
   jSb = javaObjectEDT('javax.swing.JScrollBar');
   % Set some properties:
   jSb.setOrientation(jSb.HORIZONTAL);
   % Display component
   [jScrollbar, hSbContainer] = javacomponent(jSb,'North');
   
7. sco1

   added 2 commits that reference this issue on Apr 27, 2016

   Add more conversion regex, update readme

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   624593f

   Add class property conversion for <R2014b

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   17fcb16
8. Dev-iL commented on May 9, 2016

   

   Dev-iL

   on May 9, 2016

   Last edited by Dev-iL

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   Here's a better demo of how to make a spinner and attach a callback to it:

   function hFig = spinnerDemo
   %% javacomponent "docs": Delete lines 2-3 from javacomponent.m to get access to docs using F1 (help browser)
   %% Spinner - https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/JSpinner.html
   hFig = figure(); 
   % Create a spinner (w/o model): 
   jJSpinnerNM = javacomponent(javax.swing.JSpinner,[50,40,80,30],hFig);
   jJSpinnerNM.StateChangedCallback = @(hObject,eventdata)onSpinnerValueChanged(hObject,eventdata);
   % Create a spinner (w/ model): 
   spModel = javax.swing.SpinnerListModel({'item1','item2','item3'});
     % https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/SpinnerModel.html
   jJSpinnerM = javacomponent(javax.swing.JSpinner(spModel),[50,80,80,30],hFig);
   jJSpinnerM.StateChangedCallback = @(hObject,eventdata)onSpinnerValueChanged(hObject,eventdata);
   
   %% Get available methods & fields, and set some properties:
   M = methods(jJSpinnerM); 
   F = fields(jJSpinnerM); % fields often contain the allowable settings for methods.
   
   % Set some arbitrary property:
   jJSpinnerNM.getEditor.getTextField.setHorizontalAlignment(javax.swing.JTextField.LEFT);
     % https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/SwingConstants.html
   jJSpinnerM.setComponentOrientation(java.awt.ComponentOrientation.RIGHT_TO_LEFT);
   
   % Crazier demo: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/26970-spinnerdemo
   end
   
   function onSpinnerValueChanged(hObject, eventdata)
     disp(['Spinner value is now: ' num2str(hObject.Value)]);
   end
9. altmany commented on Nov 27, 2017

   

   altmany

   on Nov 27, 2017

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   For the record, HG1 (R2014a and older) also supports dot-notation, if you simply ensure that all the relevant GUI/graphic handles are handle() objects rather than numeric. For example, the following code runs ok on HG1:

   hFig = handle(gcf);  % trick to enable dot-notation on GUI/graphic objects
   hFig.Color = 'w';
   hFig.CloseRequestFcn = @myCallback;

   The nice thing about this is that it's fully backward-compatible, meaning that hFig=handle(gcf) is transparent to HG2 and meaningful to HG1, so it can be used in Matlab code on both HG1 and HG2.

   👍React with 👍2Reacted by Andras Deak and S. Co1

   ❤️React with ❤️1Reacted by S. Co1
10. sco1 commented on Nov 27, 2017

    

    sco1

    on Nov 27, 2017

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    Whoa, I didn't know that, very interesting! When I get some time this week I'll poke around and test out some changes. Haven't looked at this in a while...
11. altmany commented on Nov 27, 2017

    

    altmany

    on Nov 27, 2017

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    It actually even improves performance in some cases:
    https://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/performance-accessing-handle-properties

    👍React with 👍1Reacted by S. Co1

    ❤️React with ❤️1Reacted by S. Co1
12. altmany commented on Nov 28, 2017

    

    altmany

    on Nov 28, 2017

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    Before you modify stuff, note that the @Dev-iL's fork is 11 commits ahead, so you might want to merge his fixes first before proceeding. I'm just mentioning it since both of you did these changes 2 years ago and probably forgot about it...