How to detect whether a figure is created by uifigure()

I have the following in my startup.m file,

   set(groot,'defaultFigureCreateFcn',@(fig, ~)addToolbarExplorationButtons(fig));

which throws an error when a uifigure is created,

   fig = uifigure;

Error using matlab.ui.Figure/set

Functionality not supported with figures created with

the uifigure function.

So, the question becomes, how can I pre-detect whether fig has been created by uifigure() as opposed to figure()? There don't appear to be separate classes reserved for the two,

>> class(figure)

ans =

'matlab.ui.Figure'

>> class(uifigure)

ans =

'matlab.ui.Figure'

Answer 1

[Bruno Luong]

This command returns true for uifigure handle fig

matlab.ui.internal.isUIFigure(fig)

[Matt J]

It works, which helps a lot. Although, it is peculiar and disquieting that it requires undocumented Matlab.

[Walter Roberson]

See also https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/348387-distinguish-uifigure-from-figure-programmatically#comment_1474400

Answer 2

[Michael]

So to complete the picture, to get rid of this error:

Functionality not supported with figures created with the uifigure function.

Define this function

function y=makefig(fig);
if ~matlab.ui.internal.isUIFigure(fig)
    addToolbarExplorationButtons(fig)
end

and put this in your startup.m

set(groot,'defaultFigureCreateFcn',@(fig,~)makefig(fig));

It would be nice if the Mathworks could do this for us in the next release. Please Guys!

[Craig]

Hello @Walter Roberson, I found that the old solution at: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/419036-what-happened-to-the-figure-toolbar-why-is-it-an-axes-toolbar-how-can-i-put-the-buttons-back

no longer works. @Adam pointed to your solution. However, even using your solution I find that using filterDesigner results in:

Error using filterDesigner (line 79)

Value must be a handle.

Any idea on how to get around that?

[Walter Roberson]

@Craig

I did not post this solution here. @Michael posted the solution here. All I did was reformat Michael's posting to put the code into code blocks.