Sequential Triggering and Synchronization Across Multiple Tabs in MATLAB App Designer

Hello MATLAB Community,

I’m working on a MATLAB App Designer project with four tabs, each handling a distinct process:

Tab 1: Processes data from a hardware interface.

Tab 2: Manages communication over a protocol.

Tab 3: Handles data imports and processing.

Tab 4: Provides a UI for controlling and monitoring the other tabs.

In Tab 4, a button triggers the processes in Tabs 1, 2, and 3 to start one after the other. However, only the first two processes are triggering successfully, while the third one doesn’t start. Each process runs continuously, and I suspect the issue may be due to blocking or conflicts between the running processes.

Questions:

1. How can I ensure all processes trigger sequentially without one blocking the other?
2. What is the best way to handle data synchronization across continuously running processes to prevent conflicts?
3. How can I keep the UI in Tab 4 updated with real-time data from all processes?

Any guidance or examples for managing synchronization across multiple tabs would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Answer 1

[Kanishk]

Hi @BHARATH

To handle processes from different tabs and execute them in a sequential manner while handling data from each tab, you can use Callback Functions and Class methods.

Here is a simple application using MATLAB App Designer which has 4 Tabs with edit fields and a button to start the process. You can design execution function for each tab and execute the function the Button Pushed callback of fourth tab.

Following are the example functions for process for each tab.

methods (Access = private)
    function results = tab1Process(app)
        disp(['Executing process for Tab1 with Value ' app.Tab1DataEditField.Value])
        % Execute Process 1
        disp("Executed process for Tab1")
    end

    function results = tab2Process(app)
        disp(['Executing process for Tab2 with Value ' app.Tab2DataEditField.Value])
        % Execute Process 2
        disp("Executed process for Tab2")
    end

    function results = tab3Process(app)
        disp(['Executing process for Tab3 with Value ' app.Tab3DataEditField.Value])
        % Execute Process 3
        disp("Executed process for Tab3")
    end
end    

These functions can be executed in the Button Pushed Callback function as follows.

function StartButtonPushed(app, event)
    % Execute Processes
    app.tab1Process();
    app.tab2Process();
    app.tab3Process();
end

Entering values and pressing the start functions give the following output.

Executing process for Tab1 with Value 1
Executed process for Tab1
Executing process for Tab2 with Value 2
Executed process for Tab2
Executing process for Tab3 with Value 3
Executed process for Tab3

The output shows the functions are executed in sequence.

To access the official documentation of MATLAB App Designer by executing this command.

web(fullfile(docroot, 'matlab/app-designer.html'))

Hope that helps!