Menu Properties
Control menu appearance and behavior
Menus display drop-down lists of options at the top of an app window. Call the
uimenu
function to create a menu or
add a submenu to an existing menu. Properties control the appearance and behavior of a
menu. Use dot notation to refer to a specific object and property.
fig = uifigure; m = uimenu(fig); m.Text = 'Open Selection';
Some properties of Menu
objects differ depending on whether the
menu is a child of a figure created using the uifigure
function or
the figure
function. The uifigure
function is
the recommended function to use when building new apps, and is the function used in App
Designer apps. For more information, see Ways to Build Apps.
Menu
Text
— Menu label
character vector | string scalar
Menu label, specified as a character vector or string scalar. This property specifies the label that appears on the menu or menu item.
Avoid using these case-sensitive reserved words:
'default'
, 'remove'
, and
'factory'
. If you must use a reserved word, then
specify a backslash character before the word. For instance, specify
'default'
as '\default'
.
You can specify a mnemonic keyboard shortcut
(Alt+mnemonic
) by using the
ampersand (&) character in the text for the label. The character that
follows the ampersand appears underlined in the menu when
Alt is pressed. You can select the menu item by holding
down the Alt key and typing the character shown.
To use mnemonics, you must specify a mnemonic for all menus and menu items that you define in the app. If you define mnemonics only for some menus or menu items, pressing the Alt key does not have any effect.
The table shows some examples:
Text Value | Menu Label with Mnemonic Hints |
---|---|
'&Open Selection' |
|
'O&pen Selection' |
|
'&Save && Go' |
|
Accelerator
— Keyboard shortcut
character | string
Keyboard shortcut, specified as a character or as a string that contains one character. Use this property to define a keyboard shortcut for selecting a menu item.
Example: mitem.Accelerator = "H"
Specifying an accelerator value enables users to select the menu item by pressing a character and another key, instead of using the mouse. The key sequence is platform specific.
Windows® systems: Ctrl+
accelerator
Macintosh systems: Command+
accelerator
Linux® systems: Ctrl+
accelerator
Things to keep in mind when using accelerators:
The app window must be in focus when entering the accelerator key sequence.
Accelerators cannot be used on top-level menus.
Accelerators only work when the menu item meets all these criteria.
It does not contain any submenu items.
It executes a callback function.
It has the
Visible
property set to'on'
.Its accelerator value is not already assigned to a different active menu item in the same figure.
Separator
— Separator line mode
'off'
(default) | on/off logical value
Separator line mode, specified as 'off'
or
'on'
, or as numeric or logical 1
(true
) or 0
(false
). A value of 'on'
is
equivalent to true
, and 'off'
is
equivalent to false
. Thus, you can use the value of this
property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value
of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState
.
Setting this property to 'on'
draws a dividing line
above the menu item.
Note
The Separator
property is ignored when the
menu item is a top-level menu item.
Checked
— Menu check indicator
'off'
(default) | on/off logical value
Menu check indicator, specified as 'off'
or
'on'
, or as numeric or logical 1
(true
) or 0
(false
). A value of 'on'
is
equivalent to true
, and 'off'
is
equivalent to false
. Thus, you can use the value of this
property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value
of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState
.
Setting this property to 'on'
places a check mark next
to the corresponding menu item. Setting it to 'off'
removes the check mark. You can use this feature to show the state of menu
items that enable or disable functionality in your application.
Note
The Checked
property is ignored when the menu
item is:
A top-level menu item
A menu item that contains one or more child menu items
ForegroundColor
— Menu label color
[0 0 0]
(default) | RGB triplet | hexadecimal color code | 'r'
| 'g'
| 'b'
| ...
Menu label color, specified as an RGB triplet, a hexadecimal color code or one of the color options listed in the table.
RGB triplets and hexadecimal color codes are useful for specifying custom colors.
An RGB triplet is a three-element row vector whose elements specify the intensities of the red, green, and blue components of the color. The intensities must be in the range
[0,1]
; for example,[0.4 0.6 0.7]
.A hexadecimal color code is a character vector or a string scalar that starts with a hash symbol (
#
) followed by three or six hexadecimal digits, which can range from0
toF
. The values are not case sensitive. Thus, the color codes"#FF8800"
,"#ff8800"
,"#F80"
, and"#f80"
are equivalent.
Alternatively, you can specify some common colors by name. This table lists the named color options, the equivalent RGB triplets, and hexadecimal color codes.
Color Name | Short Name | RGB Triplet | Hexadecimal Color Code | Appearance |
---|---|---|---|---|
"red" | "r" | [1 0 0] | "#FF0000" | |
"green" | "g" | [0 1 0] | "#00FF00" | |
"blue" | "b" | [0 0 1] | "#0000FF" | |
"cyan"
| "c" | [0 1 1] | "#00FFFF" | |
"magenta" | "m" | [1 0 1] | "#FF00FF" | |
"yellow" | "y" | [1 1 0] | "#FFFF00" | |
"black" | "k" | [0 0 0] | "#000000" | |
"white" | "w" | [1 1 1] | "#FFFFFF" |
Here are the RGB triplets and hexadecimal color codes for the default colors MATLAB® uses in many types of plots.
RGB Triplet | Hexadecimal Color Code | Appearance |
---|---|---|
[0 0.4470 0.7410] | "#0072BD" | |
[0.8500 0.3250 0.0980] | "#D95319" | |
[0.9290 0.6940 0.1250] | "#EDB120" | |
[0.4940 0.1840 0.5560] | "#7E2F8E" | |
[0.4660 0.6740 0.1880] | "#77AC30" | |
[0.3010 0.7450 0.9330] | "#4DBEEE" | |
[0.6350 0.0780 0.1840] | "#A2142F" |
Interactivity
Visible
— State of visibility
'on'
(default) | on/off logical value
State of visibility, specified as 'on'
or 'off'
,
or as numeric or logical 1
(true
) or
0
(false
). A value of 'on'
is equivalent to true
, and 'off'
is equivalent to
false
. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical
value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState
.
'on'
— Display the object.'off'
— Hide the object without deleting it. You still can access the properties of an invisible UI component.
To make your app start faster, set the Visible
property to
'off'
for all UI components that do not need to appear at
startup.
Enable
— Operational state
'on'
(default) | on/off logical value
Operational state, specified as 'on'
or 'off'
,
or as numeric or logical 1
(true
) or
0
(false
). A value of 'on'
is equivalent to true
, and 'off'
is equivalent to
false
. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical
value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState
.
If you set this property to
'on'
, the app user can interact with the component.If you set this property to
'off'
, the component appears dimmed, indicating that the app user cannot interact with it, and that it will not trigger a callback.
ContextMenu
— Context menu
empty GraphicsPlaceholder
array (default) | ContextMenu
object
Setting this property has no effect on objects of this type.
Callbacks
MenuSelectedFcn
— Menu selected callback function
''
(default) | function handle | cell array | character vector
Menu selected callback function, specified as one of these values:
A function handle.
A cell array in which the first element is a function handle. Subsequent elements in the cell array are the arguments to pass to the callback function.
A character vector containing a valid MATLAB expression (not recommended). MATLAB evaluates this expression in the base workspace.
For more information about specifying a callback property value as a function handle, cell array, or character vector, see Specify a Callback Function.
The callback responds depending on the location of the menu item and the type of interaction:
Left-clicking a menu expands that menu and triggers its callback.
While any menu is expanded, pausing on any other parent menu (or top-level menu) expands that menu and triggers its callback.
Note
Do not use a callback to dynamically change menu items. Deleting, adding, and
replacing menu items in a callback can result in a blank menu. Instead, use the
Visible
property to hide or show menu items. You can also
enable and disable menu items by setting the Enable
property.
To fully repopulate menu items, delete and create them outside the callback.
Menus Associated with Context Menus
When the menu component is associated with a context menu (as opposed to a menu
item at the top of a figure window), this callback function can access specific
information about the user's interaction with the app. MATLAB passes this information in a MenuSelectedData
object as the second argument to your callback function. In App Designer, the
argument is named event
. You can query the object properties
using dot notation. For example, event.ContextObject
returns
information about which component the user right-clicked to open the associated
context menu.
Note
You can specify a MenuSelectedFcn
callback for any
Menu
object. However, the
MenuSelectedData
object in the callback event data is
available only when the context menu that the menu belongs to satisfies both of
these conditions:
The context menu is associated with a
uifigure
-based app (such as an app created in App Designer).The context menu is associated with a UI component (as opposed to a graphics object, such as an
Axes
orLine
object).
This table lists the properties of the MenuSelectedData
object.
Property | Value |
---|---|
ContextObject | Object that the app user right-clicked to open the context menu |
InteractionInformation | Information about where in the component the app user
right-clicked to open the context menu. This information is
stored as an object with different properties depending on the
value of For
example, if |
Source | Context menu object that executes the callback |
EventName | 'MenuSelected' |
This table lists the properties of the InteractionInformation
object. The properties depend on which object the app user right-clicked to open the
context menu.
ContextObject | InteractionInformation Property | Value |
---|---|---|
Any | Location | Location where the user right-clicked relative to the
bottom-left corner of the parent container of the
The
value of |
ScreenLocation | Location where the user right-clicked relative to the
bottom-left corner of their primary display, returned as a
two-element vector of the form The value of | |
Table | DisplayRow | Row that the user right-clicked as it appears visually in the table, returned as a numeric scalar. If the user
has not sorted the table, then |
DisplayColumn | Column that the user right-clicked as it appears visually in the table, returned as a numeric scalar. If the
user has not rearranged the table, then
| |
Row | Row that the user right-clicked as it corresponds to the original table data, returned as a numeric scalar. If the user has not sorted the table, then
| |
Column | Column that the user right-clicked as it corresponds to the original table data, returned as a numeric scalar. If the user has not rearranged the table,
then | |
RowHeader | Whether the user right-clicked the table row header, returned as
a logical 0 (false ) or
1 (true ). | |
ColumnHeader | Whether the user right-clicked the table column header, returned
as a logical 0 (false ) or
1 (true ). | |
Tree | Node | Right-clicked node, returned as a
If the user
right-clicked an area of the tree that is not associated with a
node, then |
Level | Level of the right-clicked node, returned as a numeric
scalar. Nodes parented directly to the If the user right-clicked an
area of the tree that is not associated with a node, then
| |
ListBox | Item | Index of the right-clicked list box item, returned as a numeric scalar. If the user right-clicked an area of
the list box that is not associated with an item, then
|
CreateFcn
— Creation function
''
(default) | function handle | cell array | character vector
Object creation function, specified as one of these values:
Function handle.
Cell array in which the first element is a function handle. Subsequent elements in the cell array are the arguments to pass to the callback function.
Character vector containing a valid MATLAB expression (not recommended). MATLAB evaluates this expression in the base workspace.
For more information about specifying a callback as a function handle, cell array, or character vector, see Callbacks in App Designer.
This property specifies a callback function to execute when MATLAB creates the object. MATLAB initializes all property values before executing the CreateFcn
callback. If you do not specify the CreateFcn
property, then MATLAB executes a default creation function.
Setting the CreateFcn
property on an existing component has no effect.
If you specify this property as a function handle or cell array, you can access the object that is being created using the first argument of the callback function. Otherwise, use the gcbo
function to access the object.
DeleteFcn
— Deletion function
''
(default) | function handle | cell array | character vector
Object deletion function, specified as one of these values:
Function handle.
Cell array in which the first element is a function handle. Subsequent elements in the cell array are the arguments to pass to the callback function.
Character vector containing a valid MATLAB expression (not recommended). MATLAB evaluates this expression in the base workspace.
For more information about specifying a callback as a function handle, cell array, or character vector, see Callbacks in App Designer.
This property specifies a callback function to execute when MATLAB deletes the object. MATLAB executes the DeleteFcn
callback before destroying the
properties of the object. If you do not specify the DeleteFcn
property, then MATLAB executes a default deletion function.
If you specify this property as a function handle or cell array, you can access the
object that is being deleted using the first argument of the callback function.
Otherwise, use the gcbo
function to access the
object.
Callback Execution Control
Interruptible
— Callback interruption
'on'
(default) | on/off logical value
Callback interruption, specified as 'on'
or 'off'
, or as
numeric or logical 1
(true
) or
0
(false
). A value of 'on'
is equivalent to true
, and 'off'
is equivalent to
false
. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical
value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState
.
This property determines if a running callback can be interrupted. There are two callback states to consider:
The running callback is the currently executing callback.
The interrupting callback is a callback that tries to interrupt the running callback.
MATLAB determines callback interruption behavior whenever it executes a command that
processes the callback queue. These commands include drawnow
, figure
, uifigure
, getframe
, waitfor
, and pause
.
If the running callback does not contain one of these commands, then no interruption occurs. MATLAB first finishes executing the running callback, and later executes the interrupting callback.
If the running callback does contain one of these commands, then the
Interruptible
property of the object that owns the running
callback determines if the interruption occurs:
If the value of
Interruptible
is'off'
, then no interruption occurs. Instead, theBusyAction
property of the object that owns the interrupting callback determines if the interrupting callback is discarded or added to the callback queue.If the value of
Interruptible
is'on'
, then the interruption occurs. The next time MATLAB processes the callback queue, it stops the execution of the running callback and executes the interrupting callback. After the interrupting callback completes, MATLAB then resumes executing the running callback.
Note
Callback interruption and execution behave differently in these situations:
If the interrupting callback is a
DeleteFcn
,CloseRequestFcn
, orSizeChangedFcn
callback, then the interruption occurs regardless of theInterruptible
property value.If the running callback is currently executing the
waitfor
function, then the interruption occurs regardless of theInterruptible
property value.If the interrupting callback is owned by a
Timer
object, then the callback executes according to schedule regardless of theInterruptible
property value.
BusyAction
— Callback queuing
'queue'
(default) | 'cancel'
Callback queuing, specified as 'queue'
or 'cancel'
. The BusyAction
property determines how MATLAB handles the execution of interrupting callbacks. There are two callback states to consider:
The running callback is the currently executing callback.
The interrupting callback is a callback that tries to interrupt the running callback.
The BusyAction
property determines callback queuing behavior only
when both of these conditions are met:
Under these conditions, the BusyAction
property of the
object that owns the interrupting callback determines how MATLAB handles the interrupting callback. These are possible values of the
BusyAction
property:
'queue'
— Puts the interrupting callback in a queue to be processed after the running callback finishes execution.'cancel'
— Does not execute the interrupting callback.
BeingDeleted
— Deletion status
on/off logical value
This property is read-only.
Deletion status, returned as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState
.
MATLAB sets the BeingDeleted
property to
'on'
when the DeleteFcn
callback begins
execution. The BeingDeleted
property remains set to
'on'
until the component object no longer exists.
Check the value of the BeingDeleted
property to verify that the object is not about to be deleted before querying or modifying it.
Parent/Child
Parent
— Parent object
Figure
object | Menu
object | ContextMenu
object
Parent object, specified as a Figure
object created using the uifigure
function, another
Menu
object, or a ContextMenu
object. You can move a menu item to a different window, or move it under a
different menu by setting this property. Specify the parent as an existing
Menu
object to add menu items to a menu, or to nest
menu items.
Children
— Menu children
empty GraphicsPlaceholder
array (default) | 1-D array of Menu
objects
Menu children, returned as an empty GraphicsPlaceholder
or a 1-D array of Menu
objects.
You cannot add or remove child components using the
Children
property. Use this property to view the list
of children or to reorder the child menu items.
To add a child menu to this list, set the Parent
property of another Menu
object to this
Menu
object.
HandleVisibility
— Visibility of object handle
'on'
(default) | 'callback'
| 'off'
Visibility of the object handle, specified as 'on'
, 'callback'
,
or 'off'
.
This property controls the visibility of the object in its parent's
list of children. When an object is not visible in its parent's list
of children, it is not returned by functions that obtain objects by
searching the object hierarchy or querying properties. These functions
include get
, findobj
, clf
,
and close
. Objects are valid
even if they are not visible. If you can access an object, you can
set and get its properties, and pass it to any function that operates
on objects.
HandleVisibility Value | Description |
---|---|
'on' | The object is always visible. |
'callback' | The object is visible from within callbacks or functions invoked by callbacks, but not from within functions invoked from the command line. This option blocks access to the object at the command-line, but allows callback functions to access it. |
'off' | The object is invisible at all times. This option is useful
for preventing unintended changes to the UI by another function. Set
the HandleVisibility to 'off' to
temporarily hide the object during the execution of that function.
|
Identifiers
Type
— Type of graphics object
'uimenu'
This property is read-only.
Type of graphics object, returned as 'uimenu'
.
Tag
— Object identifier
''
(default) | character vector | string scalar
Object identifier, specified as a character vector or string scalar. You can specify a unique Tag
value to serve as an identifier for an object. When you need access to the object elsewhere in your code, you can use the findobj
function to search for the object based on the Tag
value.
UserData
— User data
[]
(default) | array
User data, specified as any MATLAB array. For example, you can specify a scalar, vector, matrix, cell array, character array, table, or structure. Use this property to store arbitrary data on an object.
If you are working in App Designer, create public or private properties in the app to share data instead of using the UserData
property. For more information, see Share Data Within App Designer Apps.
uifigure
-Based Apps Only
Tooltip
— Tooltip
''
(default) | character vector | cell array of character vectors | string array | 1-D categorical array
Note
This property is valid only for menus in App Designer and in apps
created using the uifigure
function.
Tooltip, specified as a character vector, cell array of character vectors, string array, or 1-D categorical array. Use this property to display a message when the user hovers the pointer over the component at run time. To display multiple lines of text, specify a cell array of character vectors or a string array. Each element in the array becomes a separate line of text. If you specify this property as a categorical array, MATLAB uses the values in the array, not the full set of categories.
Version History
Introduced before R2006aR2023b: Access information about action used to open context menu
The MenuSelectedFcn
callback has additional event data when
the callback is defined for a menu item in a context menu, and when that context
menu is associated with a UI component. Use this data to customize and share context
menus in an app.
Event Data Property | Description |
---|---|
ContextObject | Object that the app user right-clicked to open the context menu |
InteractionInformation | Information about where in the component the app user right-clicked to open the context menu, such as the cell of a table |
R2017b: Label
property is not recommended
Starting in R2017b, using the Label
property to specify the
menu label is not recommended. Use the Text
property instead.
The property values are the same.
R2017b: Position
property is not recommended
Starting in R2017b, using the Position
property to specify
the menu placement is not recommended. Modify the Children
property to reorder the menu items instead. For more information, see Lay Out Apps Programmatically.
R2017b: Callback
property is not recommended
Starting in R2017b, using the Callback
property to assign a
menu selected callback is not recommended. Use the
MenuSelectedFcn
property instead. The property values are
the same.
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