Axes, uicontrols or uitables might appear to be missing in the new graphics system because they are obscured by other components.
In R2014a and earlier, the order of components listed in the Children property matches the order in which they are created. However, this order does not necessarily match the front-to-back positioning (or the stacking order) of the components on the screen.
In R2014a and earlier, uicontrols always display on top of uipanels and uibuttongroups. Previous releases also allow an axes to display on top of a uipanel without being a child of the uipanel.
Starting in R2014b, the order of components listed in the Children property matches the stacking order of child components on the screen. You might need to update your code if your GUI contains a uipanel or uibuttongroup:
- Relative positioning is not sufficient to display an axes, uicontrol, or uitable on top of a uipanel or uibuttongroup. To place a component on top of another, set its Parent property to be the component you want to appear beneath it.
- Uipanels and uibuttongroups have the same stacking order behavior on the screen as uicontrols and uitables.
The new behavior reflects changes to MATLAB® that provide more consistent behavior.
This code creates a figure with a top panel containing an axes and a bottom panel containing a push button and pop-up menu.
hf = figure;
hb = uicontrol('Style','PushButton',...
'String','Plot',...
'Position',[175, 40, 60, 25]);
hpulabel = uicontrol('Style','text',...
'String', 'Plot Type',...
'Position', [300, 65, 60, 20]);
hpu = uicontrol('Style', 'popupmenu',...
'String', {'bar', 'plot', 'stem'},...
'Position',[310, 40, 60, 25]);
topp = uipanel('Title', 'Plot',...
'Position',[0 .25 1 .75]);
ah = axes('Position', [.10, .35 .80 .60]);
bottomp = uipanel('Title','Plotting Options',...
'Position',[0 0 1 .25]);
Running the code in R2014a and earlier produces the figure on the left. However, running this function in the new graphics system produces the figure on the right.
To ensure there are no components hidden behind containers, set the Parent property of each component to make it a child of the container. For example, the following code restores the appearance of the original GUI.
hf = figure;
topph = uipanel('Parent', hf,'Title', 'Plot',...
'Position',[0 .25 1 .75]);
axes('Parent', topph, 'Position', [.10, .35 .80 .60]);
bottomph = uipanel('Parent', hf,'Title','Plotting Options',...
'Position',[0 0 1 .25])
hpulabel = uicontrol('Parent', bottomph, 'Style','text',...
'String', 'Plot Type',...
'Position', [300, 65, 60, 20]);
hb = uicontrol('Parent', bottomph, 'Style','PushButton',...
'String','Plot',...
'Position',[175, 40, 60, 25]);
hpu = uicontrol('Parent', bottomph, 'Style', 'popupmenu',...
'String', {'bar', 'plot', 'stem'},...
'Position',[310, 40, 60, 25]);
<<http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/54903/0f1d474b8f509e31c9f43c5a798f86b1.png>>
Restoring the layout of a GUIDE GUI requires two separate steps:
- Fix the layout in GUIDE.
- Fix the child order of the components.
To fix the layout in GUIDE, open the fig-file in GUIDE and use the Send to back option to rearrange the stacking. For example, to move the panel in this GUI behind all other components, right-click the panel and select Send to back.
To fix the child order of the components, so that the GUI displays them as they appear in GUIDE, select View > Object Browser. Then, select a component and move it slightly within the panel or button group. For example, selecting and moving this Start button slightly while it is on the panel makes it a child of the panel.
Child components display on top of their parent, so this Start button displays on top of the panel when the GUI runs.
