Programmatically select a specific object when switching on plotedit

Is there any way to select an object when issuing the command

plotedit(hfig,'on');

I tried to overwrite 'CurrentObject' property but it did not work. There is also a 'CurrentAxes' property, and that did not work either.

Is there any solution?

[Fangjun Jiang]

what is ax, axis, axes, figure?

[Csaba]

Sorry. Of course, it is a figure. I will edit it and change to hfig. And actually, I want to select axes.

[Walter Roberson]

In what respect would you like it to be selected?

[Csaba]

When you issue plotedit one of the objects on the figure is selected (selection marks are around the object). The object is usually the one which was last selected in previous use of plotedit. I want to say in advance which object should be selected (I know of course the handles of all objects).

Answer 1

[Csaba]

OK. Sorry folks, I have found it.

In the defining function:

f=figure;
object=uicontrol(.........,'ButtonDownFcn',{@ButtonDownFcn_Callback,f},'NextPlot','replacechildren',....)
% do it for all objects you define (or you want to select this way)

NextPlot property is necessary only for axes.

and the callback function should do:

function ButtonDownFcn_Callback(hObject,eventdata,hfig)
% hfig=figure; handle to figure containing the objects

% find all axes objects
        hhh=findobj(hfig,'Type','axes');
%unselect all objects
        [NN,~]=size(hhh);
        for i=1:NN
            hhh(i).Selected='off';
        end
% select the currentobject
        hfig.CurrentObject.Selected='on';
        plotedit on;

% the object you clicked on will only be selected.
end

and voila, it works.

Note, that plotedit should be switched off in order to use callback again!

Answer 2

[Fangjun Jiang]

f=figure(1);
p=plot(1:10);
ax=findobj(f,'type','axes');

[Csaba]

And where is the selection for plotedit?

[Fangjun Jiang]

What do you mean? You just want to select (or find) the axes, right? Although document says plotedit() toggles the plot edit mode for figure, I find out that you could run plotedit(ax,'on'). It has the same effect as plotedit(f,'on')

[Csaba]

As far as I know, you cannot use axes handle for plotedit. Anyway, I know exactly all the handles of the objects in the figure.

[Walter Roberson]

If the first argument to plotedit is a graphics object but not a figure then plotedit quietly does gcf() instead, ignoring the passed graphics object.

[Fangjun Jiang]

I think "CurrentObject" is read-only. You can't select an object by setting "CurrentObject".

From the document:

CurrentObject — Most recently selected component in figure object

Most recently selected component in the Figure, specified as an object. MATLAB sets the CurrentObject property to the last object the user clicked. This object is the front-most object in the view. You can use this property to determine which object a user has selected.

An object’s HitTest property controls whether that object can become the CurrentObject.

Clicking an object whose HandleVisibility property is off (such as axis labels and title) causes the CurrentObject property to be set to empty. To avoid returning an empty value when users click a hidden object, set HitTest property of the hidden object to 'off'.

Moving the cursor over objects does not update the CurrentObject. Users must click objects to update this property. See the CurrentPoint property for related information.

If you are looking for a quick way to access the current object, consider using the gco command.

[Csaba]

Yes, I said it does not work. But help does not say it is read-only. So I tried.

Answer 3

[Sean de Wolski]

Are you perhaps looking for inspect?

inspect(axes)

Note, this has gotten a lot better in 18a.

[Csaba]

Sorry, no. I explained it above what I mean by "selected".