Deselect uimenus after click in GUI

Dear all,

I am facing a GUI issue. In the following example, if you click on a menu and slide to the other one, the second one is triggered. I don't want this behaviour. Could someone guide me toward a solution?

    function mwe(varargin)
    handles.main = figure;
    set(handles.main,'Units','pixels','Position',[300 300 210 50],...
        'DockControls','Off','MenuBar','none','Toolbar','none');

    handles.menu1 = uimenu('Parent',handles.main,'Label','Menu1');
    handles.menu2 = uimenu('Parent',handles.main,'Label','Menu2');

    handles.txt = uicontrol(handles.main,'Style','text','Units','pixels',...
        'String','','HorizontalAlignment','Center','Position',[5 5 200 40]);

    set(handles.menu1,'CallBack',{@fcn_txt,handles});
    set(handles.menu2,'CallBack',{@fcn_txt,handles});
    end

    function fcn_txt(hObject,eventdata,handles)
    set(handles.txt,'String',get(hObject,'Label'));
    end

I tried different solutions and the only one working at the moment is to put a waitbar. I even tried using the setArmed Java method.

Thank you for your help, Cédric

[Jan]

What does "to put a waitbar" exactly mean? And what is the "setArmed Java method"?

You explain, what you don't want. But what do you want instead? Perhaps it would be a solution to convince you, that the standard behavior of menus is ok?

[Cédric Devivier]

The standard behaviour of menus is ok if you have submenus. If your menus are triggering a function, you might want that, after the function, the menu do not stay selected (ie stay in blue).

The setArmed Java method should exactly be what I want. Unfortunately, it did not when I programmed it.

Below is the not-that-clean workaround that I found after asking this question.

    function mwe(varargin)
    handles.main = figure;
    set(handles.main,'Units','pixels','Position',[300 300 210 50],...
        'DockControls','Off','MenuBar','none','Toolbar','none');

    handles.menu1 = uimenu('Parent',handles.main,'Label','Menu1');
    handles.menu2 = uimenu('Parent',handles.main,'Label','Menu2');

    handles.txt = uicontrol(handles.main,'Style','text','Units','pixels',...
        'String','','HorizontalAlignment','Center','Position',[5 5 200 40]);

    set(handles.menu1,'CallBack',{@fcn_txt,handles});
    set(handles.menu2,'CallBack',{@fcn_txt,handles});
    end

    function fcn_txt(hObject,eventdata,handles)
    drawnow
    pause(0.1)
    robot = java.awt.Robot;
    position=get(0,'PointerLocation');
    set(0,'PointerLocation',[0 0])
    robot.mousePress  (java.awt.event.InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
    robot.mouseRelease(java.awt.event.InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
    set(0,'PointerLocation',position)
    drawnow
    set(handles.txt,'String',get(hObject,'Label'));
    end

Thank you for your help.

[Sean de Wolski]

So just to be crystal clear you want the focus to be restored to the figure after?

[Cédric Devivier]

I need the uimenu to lose the focus. It may be going somewhere else the figure for instance. I tried adding simply figure(gcf) but it did not work.

Answer 1

[Jan]

There might be an equivalent effect for UICONTROLs. Here even the focus remains at the UICONTROL, such that e.g. the KeyPress fcuntion of the figure is not triggered anymore. In this case a solution is:

set(ObjectH, 'Enable', 'off');
drawnow;
set(ObjectH, 'Enable', 'on');

This is more compact than letting the java.robot click to an arbitrary position - which is a very bold action I'd avoid under all circumstances.

[Cédric Devivier]

Unfortunately, it is still behaving the same way. So far, the java.robot click is the only solution. Why don't you advise such behaviour?

[Jan]

there could be a GUI with a dangerous button at the location [0,0], e.g. the confirmation dialog of a disk formatting. Or it could be another menu element of the same GUI.

[Cédric Devivier]

Thank you, I changed it to click on the same figure.

Answer 2

[Jeffrey Girard]

Unfortunately, Jan's solution didn't work for me either. These aren't ideal solutions, but I have found that this behavior can be avoided by:

1. Adding a submenu with even one choice
2. Producing some sort of figure or dialog box with the menu callback (a "success" msgbox)