CustomDisplay functionality for AppDesigner apps

I'm developing an AppDesigner App that I intend to interact with from the console. Right now, when I display my app at the console, my custom members get buried under all the public handles as shown below:

>> hApp

hApp =

MyApp with properties:

UIFigure: [1×1 Figure]

FileMenu: [1×1 Menu]

OpenMenu: [1×1 Menu]

SaveMenu: [1×1 Menu]

... % Many more handles omitted for brevity % ...

foo: 0

bar: [1x1 struct]

baz: [1x1 struct]

I'm trying to achieve something similar to this, where the least useful public members are hidden in the properties link:

>> hApp.UIFigure

ans =

Figure (MyApp) with properties:

Number: []

Name: 'MyApp'

Color: [940.0000e-003 940.0000e-003 940.0000e-003]

Position: [2.1360e+003 -663.0000e+000 640.0000e+000 480.0000e+000]

Units: 'pixels'

Show all properties

The Figure class can easily achieve this due to inheritance from matlab.mixin.CustomDisplay. However, AFAIK, it is not possible to edit the inheritance of AppDesigner apps.

How do I hide visibility of particular members without reinventing the wheel?

Answer 1

[Pratyush Swain]

Hi Anthony,

I do not think the AppDesigner framework allows editing the inheritance structure of apps. As a workaround, when you have too many public handles, consider grouping your custom properties into a struct.

Please refer to this following workflow:

1 - Define a property to contain the custom components

    properties (Access = public)
        myprops struct % Group all custom components here
    end

2 - Define a function where you will group the components

The idea is you should add all your custom components here -

    function initializeProps(app)
            app.myprops = struct();

            % Group custom components into a struct
            app.myprops.baz = app.baz;
            app.myprops.bar = app.bar;
            app.myprops.foo = app.foo;
   end

3 - Call the function

Add a callback function to the main app component (from the design view) - name it as appStartup(), call the grouping function inside this.

   initializeProps(app);

Finally you can view the custom components like this:

I have also attached a sample mlapp file for your reference.

Let me know if this helps.

[Anthony]

That's a bit clunky, but I see where you are going with this.

Unfortunately, I also want to do this with methods as well as members. Members were just convenient to illustrate the issue.

It seems a little awkward to encode handles into anonymous functions in order to call MyApp members from the console, but doable.

Thanks anyway!

Answer 2

[Githin George]

Another workaround I would suggest is to Export your App outside of App Designer and modify the inheritance rule. Multiple Inheritance seems to be working well for this use case and you can override the functions as you would for a Figure object.

[Anthony]

I actually considered that option. However, AFAIK there is no way to import the code back into AppDesigner. At that point, you are constrained to a full programmatic workflow, which kind of defeats the purpose of AppDesigner.

Now if you can think of a better way to use mixins natively, please let me know.

Thanks!