OpeningFcn with GUI NOT created by GUIDE

Dear all, i have created a GUI without GUIDE and i am wondering how it's possible to call the OpeningFcn function like in GUIs created with GUIDE.

Answer 1

[Robert Cumming]

As joseph said - you dont need to.

One way around it is to create your figure with visible set to off - call your own OpeningFcn - then set visible to on!

Answer 2

[Joseph Cheng]

Do you need to? whatever you're using to create the GUI (not with GUIDE) is the OpeningFcn portion.

[Joseph Cheng]

well it looks like you're compiling it into a standalone exe? then i do not think putting it in the openingfcn equivalent is going to help as its taking 2min for matlab runtime to get everything straight before showing you anything.

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/92901-how-can-i-show-a-splash-screen-when-the-mcr-is-loading-in-windows-standalone-application-mode is a thread i found that maybe relevant.

If you're not compiling to an executable then here is an example with the little details on why it takes 2 min (actual processing occurring or just displaying a simple GUI?). (come code or description of your startup sequence would have been nice):

function SplashScreen_Main()
fig_hand = figure; %figure handles
fig_size = get(fig_hand ,'Position');

I = imread('logo.tif');
AXES = axes;
imagesc(I),colormap(gray),set(AXES,'Position',[0 0 1 1])
set(fig_hand,'menubar','none');

Process_2minStartup(10)
YPos_offset=-65; %offset in y

    %loop to generate popups.
    for i=1:5
        Type(i)=uicontrol('Style', 'popup',...
               'String', '|1|2|3|4|5',...
               'Position', [20 340+(i-1)*YPos_offset 100 50],'tag',['TYPE' num2str(i)]);   
    end
    %setting some to enable off;
    set(Type(1),'Enable','off');
    set(Type(3),'Enable','off');

    %disp(Type) %my debuging 

    %generate pushbutton.
    Pbutton=uicontrol('Style', 'pushbutton',...
       'String', 'check',...
       'Position', [220 340 100 20],...
       'Callback', {@check, fig_hand});   

    delete(AXES)

function Process_2minStartup(seconds)
    pause(seconds)

function check(~,~,fig_hand)
TYPE=findobj(fig_hand,'Style','popup') %this is just to see if the popup numbers match what i have above for Type.
popup_tag = get(TYPE,'tag'); %get the tags
popup_enabled = get(TYPE,'Enable'); %get enabled
popup_stuff = get(TYPE,'String'); %get whats inside the pop up boxes
popup_select = get(TYPE,'Value'); %get which item was selected

for ind = 1:length(TYPE)
    if strcmp(popup_enabled{ind},'on'); %check which popups are enabled
        if strcmp(popup_stuff{ind}(popup_select{ind}),' ') %check if empty
           fprintf(2, 'Problem: Empty string in: %s\n', popup_tag{ind});

          else
              fprintf(1,'Good: Valid string in: %s is %s\n', popup_tag{ind}, popup_stuff{ind}(popup_select{ind})); 
          end
      else
          fprintf(1,'Enable Off for Popup: %s\n', popup_tag{ind});
      end
  end

Pardon the not relevant code but to save some time i used an example i gave earlier today. So depending on whats taking the 2 min move the splash screen above.

Answer 3

[George Lazaridis]

thanks for your answers guys. I am trying to incorporate into my GUI a splash screen because my executable's boot time is around 2 minutes! In every article i found online, it's mentioned to put some piece of code in the OpeningFcn function, but i don't have an OpeningFcn function as i created my GUI manually (i don't use GUIDE). What should i do?

Answer 4

[George Lazaridis]

    function HRVanalyzer11()
clc
clear all
s = SplashScreen( 'Splashscreen', 'example_splash.png', ...
                        'ProgressBar', 'on', ...
                        'ProgressPosition', 5, ...
                        'ProgressRatio', 0.4 );
      s.addText( 30, 50, 'HRV_Analyzer', 'FontSize', 30, 'Color', [0 0 0.6] );
      s.addText( 30, 80, 'v1.0', 'FontSize', 20, 'Color', [0.2 0.2 0.5] );
      s.addText( 300, 270, 'Loading...', 'FontSize', 20, 'Color', 'white' );

if true
  % code
end
hWinSize =  320;
vWinSize = 240;
warning off MATLAB:divideByZero
warning off MATLAB:singularMatrix
handles.flag = 0 ;
handles.srate=200;
handles.fsRR = 4;
handles.filterpointer = 0;
handles.rrflag = 0 ;

if true
  % code
end
%Menu tabs
f = figure('Name','HRV_Analyzer','NumberTitle','off','Visible','off',...
  'Position',[0,0,hWinSize,vWinSize],...
  'menubar','none',...
  'DockControls','off',...
  'toolbar','none',...
  'color',[0.9,0.9,0.9],...
  'Units','normalized','CloseRequestFcn',@Exit_callback);

if true
  % code
end
FileMenu = uimenu('Label','File',...
  'parent', f,...
  'visible', 'on');

and when I set the figure (f) visible then i delete(S).

Answer 5

[George Lazaridis]

I just want to put something on the screen while the user is waiting for the matlab executable to load.

[Robert Cumming]

what version of matlab are you using? In R2014a you can specify a splashscreen which Matlab will display while the MCR loads (which is most likely to be whats taking the majority of the time).

For older versions of matlab you could try (its commercial) this method by Yair Altman.

Answer 6

[George Lazaridis]

I am using 2013a. I believe you have to pay for Yair Altman's method :) As you can see i have my splash screen code in the first lines of my program. When i am running the program in Matlab environment it works as supposed to work, but of course, the delay is minimum, like 2-3seconds. When i deploy the .exe then, the delay time is 2minutes and the splash screen opens at the very last seconds before showing the GUI.

[Robert Cumming]

The delay you have sounds like its the time taken to load the MCR. There is nothing you can do in your m-code to solve this.

Its not a trivial problem to solve - hence why you have to pay for Yairs solution.

[George Lazaridis]

but I've read online about solutions with wrappers etc in Visual Studio etc that i can implement myself. Do you think something like that would work ?

[Robert Cumming]

Of course its possible - thats what Yair did.

I assume a VS solution would you require loading your GUI as a DLL into the project - and all your VS solution does is to display your splashscreen - which is displayed while the DLL (+MCR) is loaded.

[George Lazaridis]

this a good example i found but still requires the openingfcn. http://www.matlabexperthelp.com/2012/07/13/create-a-splash-screen-for-your-compiled-matlab-gui/

[Robert Cumming]

It doesn't require the openingfcn - that is just using it as an example.

It requires any function where you start your code - so put it just before you make your gui visible/interactive.

The creation of your splash screen is in the wrapper - all your doing is deleting it in your m-code.

[George Lazaridis]

oh, ok :) thank you

[George Lazaridis]

I'll try that to see how it works.