Matlab – Running a GUI requires opening the .fig file in GUIDE

MATLABmatlab-figurematlab-guideuser interface

I am trying to run a MATLAB GUI I have created. If I open the .fig file using GUIDE and press the run button there, it runs perfectly.

However, when I double-click the .fig file in the 'Current Folder' section of MATLAB, it seems to be unable to find the handles variable. This causes it to give an error whenever handles is used.

Why does this happen? Is there a fix/workaround?

I'm using MATLAB R2011, but I've tried it on R2012 as well. The code runs fine, and displays the GUI fine, but the moment it encounters the handles variable, it gives the following error:

Attempt to reference field of non-structure array.

Best Answer

When you create a GUI using GUIDE, it should create both a .fig file and a .m file. To run it, you should run the .m file, rather than double-clicking the .fig file.

The .fig file just contains static information about the layout of the GUI - there is nothing executable in it that would initialise handles and so on.

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The simplest way is an anonymous method passed into Label.Invoke:

// Running on the worker thread
string newText = "abc";
form.Label.Invoke((MethodInvoker)delegate {
    // Running on the UI thread
    form.Label.Text = newText;
});
// Back on the worker thread

Notice that Invoke blocks execution until it completes--this is synchronous code. The question doesn't ask about asynchronous code, but there is lots of content on Stack Overflow about writing asynchronous code when you want to learn about it.

MATLAB GUI using GUIDE: List Box issue

What do you mean by "running the fig file itself"? GUIDE creates two files: an m-file and a .fig file (for example my_guide_app.m and my_guide_app.fig). Are you opening the .fig with something like openfig? This won't work because the m-file needs to set the figures opening function which creates the handle structure. So to run GUI's made with GUIDE it is necessary to call the m-file to launch the application and not just open the .fig file.

Let me know if I misinterpreted your statement about opening the .fig file, because there could be something else wrong.

Best Answer

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MATLAB GUI using GUIDE: List Box issue

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