Appdesigner window ends up in background after uigetfile

I am creating a graphic program using appdesigner but when I call a function where the user can choose a file (uigetfile) the figure window is often put behind some other of my open windows after the file has been chosen. For example if I have a word document open at the same time as my program, the word document gets focus when the file has been chosen and I have to click at the bottom bar to get back to my program. I was using GUIDE before and then I didn't have that problem. I am running on Windows. Is there a way to solve this?

[Jorg Woehl]

Same problem here. When I call uigetfile or uiputfile from an App Designer app, the focus is not correctly transferred to the new file selector window. Any workarounds?

[Chris McRaven]

I am also seeing this problem. I think this is unexpected behavior. The focus should return to the uifigure which called uigetfile(). My steps to reproduce are

1. Make a mlapp in App Designer that has a button that calls uigetfile()
2. Run the new program from App Designer
3. Click on the Matlab main window
4. Click back on the new program
5. Click the button which calls uigetfile()
6. Select a file, and click 'open'
7. Focus will return to the Matlab main window, not the new program as expected

This also works if I have another figure window open. That is, if I click away from the new program to any open figure window, then click back to the new program to run uigetfile(), the focus is returned to that open figure window.

I've tried calling figure(app.NewProgram) immediately after to no effect. I have also tried various drawnow calls as described below, but none worked. Has anybody found a workaround?

Answer 1

[Friedrich]

For MATLAB R2018a and newer you can use the figure command to focus your app again,

uigetfile; % Could be other dialogs here
drawnow;
figure(app.UIFigure)

For releases prior either turn the visibility off and on again or use the attached p file (change extension from .zip to .p). The usage then would be

uigetfile; % Could be other dialogs here
drawnow;
FocusUIFigure(app.UIFigure)

[Patrick Schuster]

Hello,

I cannot open the attached zip file.

Is it broken?

Regards

Patrick

[Payam Razavi]

Thanks for the answer. Please note for 2020a it worked better (without any jump to other applications) without "drawnow" command. Just added the following and it worked

figure(app.UIFigure)

[Omar Alamoudi]

This is an effective workaround, but this should not be the expected behavior right? I'm using 2020a and the dialog I'm using is inputdlg

[Mario Malic]

The answer works for me, but my window flickers for a moment Which is a little bit annoying. It seems that after exiting uigetdir command window gets focused by default. Did anyone experience this?

Note: App window flickers if MATLAB main window and App are on the same monitor, and MATLAB window not minimised..

[Francois Moyroud]

Even when did i minimise MATLAB window that app window flicks happen. Did you get any solution about that?

[Joyce Trapp]

In Matlab 2021b following did the trick for me:

filename = uigetfile(...);

figure(UIFigure);

(also assuming UIFigure is the name of your Figure)

[Onur Ozdemir]

This answer correctly restores the window! but you can prevent it from minimizing too (which I prefer), check out my answer. Thanks and good luck.

Answer 2

[Chris McRaven]

I believe I have a (somewhat ugly) workaround. Immediately after calling uigetfile(), simply make the main uifigure window invisible and then visible. Assuming the name of your uifigure window is 'UIFigure', add

...
filename = uigetfile(...);
app.UIFigure.Visible = 'off';
app.UIFigure.Visible = 'on';
...

right after the call to uigetfile().

[Jorg Woehl]

Didn't work either...

[Eric H.]

Chris, Your Visible = 'off'/Visible = 'on' trick worked for me. Thanks to everyone for posting this! Eric

[Philip Ziegler]

Thank you so much, Chris, you helped me to solve one of my issues for the GUI I had to program for my bachelors thesis! :D

[Matt J]

Didn't work for me either...

[karim botros]

it worked ,, Thank you so much for this workaround,, i hope matlab finds a solutions for this bug

[Tahoe Schrader]

This worked but is quite ugly. Wish there was a way to set focus without the app having to effectively blink on and off.

[Luke M]

Worked for me on 2017a. I haven't tried 2017b, so I don't know if they fixed it. If not, I hope MATLAB catches this and comes up with a fix.

[Sajad Mahnan]

I'm using Matlab 2018a and this issue did not fix.

[Harry Talbot]

This works for me in 2018a.

[Ghazi Mrazouk]

Worked for me 2017a.thanks

[Gijs de Vries]

Worked for me 2017b, thank you!

[xinxin wang]

Great idea！！worked for me 2018b.But it's so depressing we can't direct to UIfigure

[Phil]

Thanks alot!!

Answer 3

[Tomas Åhlman]

Try using:

filename = uigetfile(...); figure(app.UIFigure);

(assuming UIFigure is the name of your main window)

[Mustafa Caner Bulut]

Thank's! It works for me

[Farley Postgate]

This workaround works for me. I just tried it with matlab 2020a...

[Shaul Shvimmer]

Worked for me as well, thank you!

(MATLAB 2019b)

Answer 4

[WTxnitz]

All these answers address getting the app window back as focus after uigetfile.

The other side of the problem for me is the uigetfile dialog itself launches behind all other windows.

Here is a workaround I found. This works on 2020a and macOS Mojave

% open dummy figure
f=figure();
%bring figure to front focus
drawnow;

%the uigetfile dialog now opens properly in front focus
[xl_file,xl_path] = uigetfile('*.*');
% after user closes dialog

% delete dummy
delete(f);

%use solution elsewhere to return focus to app
app.your_app_here.Visible = 'off';
app.your_app_here.Visible = 'on';

This seems to work both from within the app embedded code and with "external" files

in the main Matlab window.

[Andrew Davies]

Thanks. First usable workaround I've found. You can hide the temporary figure with

f.Visible = 'off'; 

just after the first drawnow.

[WTxnitz]

Good answer. I'll give it a try.

Alternately, I use the figure title and a text box to replace the title argument macOS doen't honor.

If you play around, you can size and position the figure as a backdrop to the dialog.

I even roughly compensate for different screen resolutions.

[val]

Unfortunately, this does not work for me in 2021b :(

[WTxnitz]

Sorry to hear it doesn't work for you :-(

Just checked. It still works for me 2021b, update 1 (9.11.0.1809720) - latest

on latest MacBook Pro M1 and MacOs Monterey 12.1

also works on intel MBP

can't help more than this. hope you find a fix

[WTxnitz]

Not sure what didn't work

my answer is to get the uigetfile dialog itself in front focus

I did check my code and there is one difference, as to returning focus to the app

Based on other people's input instead of:

%use solution elsewhere to return focus to app
    app.your_app_here.Visible = 'off';
    app.your_app_here.Visible = 'on';

I use

    figure(app.your_app_here)

both seem to work

Answer 5

[Onur Ozdemir]

As WTxnitz said, all these answers address getting the app window back as focus after uigetfile but what is preferred is to prevent it from minimizing in the first place. Here I made a small change to WTxnitz's answer, this way a non visible dummy figure is created instead of sending everything to background.

f = figure('Renderer', 'painters', 'Position', [-100 -100 0 0]); %create a dummy figure so that uigetfile doesn't minimize our GUI
[filename,path] = uigetfile('*.txt', 'Open text file','MultiSelect','on');
delete(f); %delete the dummy figure

This prevents uigetfile from sending appdesigner window to background while !

Best of luck.

[Milena Murillo]

Thanks a lot :)

Answer 6

[awezmm]

Write commandwindow(); before you uigetdir

Answer 7

[Syed Hussain]

Hi

Its is really strange behaviour

My Solution was just to use

...
filename = uigetfile(...);
app.UIFigure.Visible = 'on';
...

It removed the glichy behaviour.

Thanks

Answer 8

[Riyadh Abbas]

Hi there, I found a solution to this issue provided by http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/solving-a-matlab-hang-problem, which suggested adding two lines drawnow; pause(0.05);

I tried it and it did work for me, hope can solve your problem.

[Jorg Woehl]

Didn't work for me...

[Matt J]

Me neither.

[Neelakanthu Karra]

Didn't worked for me ....

[James Ryan]

Perhaps you misread the question. This is not a hang (as in your link). The window simply end up behind others.