Matlab UIControl Units

Question

I am using uicontrol to create GUI Elements. Following is my Code

uicontrol('Style','pushbutton', 'String','Load data','Parent',hTabs(1),'Position',[250 825 80 20], 'Callback',@ButtonCallback);

Here the problem is when i am using Units normalized option the GUI element is disappearing from Screen. I want to use normalized so that GUI adjusts itself in different screen resolutions. Any idea on this would be very helpful for me.

Answer 1

When you use Normalized units you need to define the position between 0 and 1, with 0 being the bottom/left hand side and 1 being the total height/width of the containing object.

You are currently defining the position using numbers that are well out of this range. You can do two things.

• Switch the units to normalized in seperate function call (demonstrated below)
• Create the uicontrol with normalized units, but you'll have to calculate the proper position vector

Here are examples on how to do either

A simple solution is to create the uicontrol and then set the units to normalized in a separate call

u = uicontrol(...) %don't specify the units
set(u,'Units', 'Normalized'); % this solves your problem

If you want to get the position vector in normalized units

normPos = get(u, 'Position') % get the position in normal space

Then use these numbers to create the uicontrol with normalized units:

u = uicontrol(...,'Units','Normalized', 'Position', normPos); 

Answer 2

When using the 'units','normalized' option you must change your position vector. The figure reference system has coordinates between 0 and 1.

E.g.

uicontrol('Style','pushbutton',...
          'String','Load data',...
          'Parent',hTabs(1),...
          'units','normalized',...
          'Position',[0 0 0.1 0.1],...
          'Callback',@ButtonCallback); 

gives you a button 10% of the height and width in the lower left corner of the parent panel.