how (in a program) to dock figures side by side

I want to dock figures (within a program) as shown in the image attached using a program. What handle properties do I need to set to achieve this?

The script below puts figures into 3 tabs such that only 1 is visible at a time. To get what I want, I grab figure 1 tab, move until a block box splits the figures. Then I adjust with pane width by grabbing the line separating the panes.

h=figure(1); plot(1,1); set(h,'WindowStyle','docked')
h=figure(2); plot(2,2); set(h,'WindowStyle','docked')
h=figure(3); plot(3,3); set(h,'WindowStyle','docked')

When I move the figure from the docked tabbed arrangement to the side by side arrangement there is only a change in the position property of the figure. When tabbed, the position is of the form [1 1 width height], and when side-by-side (on the left) it becomes [4 4 width/2 height] or if on right, [width/2 4 width height]. I've tried setting the position both with set and inspect but an error is generated.

[Chris Barnhart]

Mathworks states there is no way to do this with multiple figures as of 2014b.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Set the 'OuterPosition' property of the figure:

h1 = figure; 
plot(rand(1, 10)); 
% Make figure fit in upper left quadrant..
set(gcf, 'Units', 'Normalized', 'OuterPosition', [0, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5]);

h2 = figure; 
plot(rand(1, 10)); 
% Make figure fit in upper right quadrant..
set(gcf, 'Units', 'Normalized', 'OuterPosition', [0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5]);

h3 = figure; 
plot(rand(1, 10)); 
% Make figure fit in lower left quadrant..
set(gcf, 'Units', 'Normalized', 'OuterPosition', [0, 0, 0.5, 0.5]);

h4 = figure; 
plot(rand(1, 10)); 
% Make figure fit in lower left quadrant..
set(gcf, 'Units', 'Normalized', 'OuterPosition', [0.5, 0, 0.5, 0.5]);

[Chris Barnhart]

Was looking for a single figure with subplots that are docked so they can be manipulated as a single group.

Answer 2

[Matt J]

If it will always be a 1x3 arrangement (or smaller), then you could first template one manually using the arrangement controls in the figure window

This results in, for example,

Thereafter, figures will always dock this way, even when done programmatically,

 >> h=[figure(1), figure(2), figure(3)];
 >> set(h, 'WindowStyle', 'Docked');

[Andrey Revyakin]

In ML 2021, this results in 1 figure window with 3 tabs.

[nicolas pothier]

How to do it automatically ?

[Matt J]

@Andrey Revyakin , @nicolas pothier You must follow these steps:

(1) undock the figure window from the Matlab desktop window

(2) spread the windows out side-by-side using the layour controls as I mentioned

(3) redock them in the Matlab desktop

Subsequent to this, future figure plots will be automatically docked in this arrangement.