stop bringing GUI to front

Hi,

I actually have 2 GUIs. One open in the front and another one running in the background. The GUI in the background shows an axes which displays a text that is rebuilt periodically. Every rebuild brings the GUI to front. How can I turn this off?

Answer 1

[Jan]

A figure is moved to the front if it is explicitly requested to do so. Perhaps there is a figure(figHandle); axes(axesH) in your code, which move the figure to front and code to activate the wanted axes. Then text() writes to the specified axes, but the lifting of the figure is not useful in your case. A solution would be then:

text(0.5, 0.5, 'Hello', 'Parent', axesH)

Specifying the parent cares for writing to the wanted axes also, but without moving the figure to the front.

So please check your code e.g. by using the debugger until you find the command, which causes the activation of the figure. Then remove this command and replace it accordingly.

Answer 2

[Sean de Wolski]

Hi Adrian,

You have to use low level plotting functionality to set the properties of graphics objects (i.e. the text) that already exist rather than creating new ones.

I did this in an example here for changing the figure settings, you'll need to do the same for text.

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/80092#answer_89810

If you want a small example, I could create it for you.

More: Example

function changeTextInBackground

      %Some strings to cycle through
      strings = {'Hello World';...
                 'Happy Friday';...
                 'Oktoberfest is nearly here';...
                 'The Patriots are still 2-0!';...
                 'And the Ravens aren''t.'};

      %Background figure
      hFig1 = figure;
      set(hFig1,'units','normalized');
      plot(1:10);

      %We create the text box here, only once
      hText = text(5,5,'Initializing...');

      %Build the foreground figure
      hFig2 = figure;
      surf(peaks);

      % Timer will change text every  second
      T = timer('Period',1,... %period
          'ExecutionMode','fixedRate',... %{singleShot,fixedRate,fixedSpacing,fixedDelay}
          'BusyMode','drop',... %{drop, error, queue}
          'TasksToExecute',200,...
          'StartDelay',0,...
          'TimerFcn',@changeText,...
          'StartFcn',[],...
          'StopFcn',[],...
          'ErrorFcn',[]);

      ii = 0; %index for cycling through strings
      start(T);    

      function changeText(~,~)
          % increment location
          ii = ii+1;          %Move the figure

          %This is the key line!!! hText already exists, we're just updating
          %it
          set(hText,'String',strings{ii});
          drawnow; %force update

          %Reset
          if ii == numel(strings)
              ii = 0;
          end
      end
  end

[Adrian]

An example would be very nice...

I already searched for help. This is what I found most: set(handles.axes, 'visible', 'off'); This did not solve the problem.

[Sean de Wolski]

Well you don't want to set it to invisible! You want to change the property that controls what you're seeing. Let me adapt the last example.

[Adrian]

I tried to set it invisible, it came back!

[Adrian]

But even if invisible would work, it would be a bad solution. Actually i am working with two desktops. If I am working with the one GUI I want to be able to take a look to the other one. But I dont want to lose focus periodically!