How to pop-out figure from tiled figure in editor (2022b)

On a prior version of matlab, there was a icon that poped up in the tiled figure that allowed me to pop a tiled figure into its own window. Now it just saves an image of it. I want to zoom in and maximize my view in the figure editor.

The new icon is shown here, the old one did as I wanted, was in the same position on the pop up axis menu.

Thanks for your help!

[Aiswarya]

Thank you for bringing this to notice. Could you please tell which version of MATLAB you used, which enabled you to pop-out figure from the tiled layout? I can see that in the latest version I am unable to do so.

[Paul Martellock]

I think it was 2020B it could have been 2020A. I will ask a co-worker tomorrow to see if he still has the old vesion installed.

[Aiswarya]

Hi,

I tried out versions of MATLAB back till 2019b but couldn't find the feature you are talking about. Kindly recheck it and confirm the version if you find it.

[Paul Martellock]

Thanks, I need to find someone who has older version of matlab installed... (corportate computer I can't install it myself).

Answer 1

[Benjamin Kraus]

I don't believe there was ever an icon that allowed you to pop-out one axes from within figure and create a new figure, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to implement such a feature for yourself by customizing the axes toolbar.

For example:

f = figure;
for n = 1:6
    ax = nexttile();
    plot(sin(linspace(0,2*pi,100)+(pi*n/3)))
    
    % Create a custom toolbar with no buttons
    % You can keep any of the buttons you want to keep.
    tb = axtoolbar(ax);
    
    % Create a custom export button.
    btn = axtoolbarbtn(tb, 'push', 'Icon', 'export');
    
    % When the button is pushed, use copyobj to copy the axes into a new
    % figure
    btn.ButtonPushedFcn = @(~,e) set(copyobj(e.Axes,figure),'OuterPosition',[0 0 1 1]);
end

[Benjamin Kraus]

Here is a more complicated version that uses a local helper function to fix some of the layout issues you see with the simpler version. This version needs to be run from a script.

f = figure;
for n = 1:6
    ax = nexttile();
    plot(sin(linspace(0,2*pi,100)+(pi*n/3)))
    
    % Create a custom toolbar with no buttons
    % You can keep any of the buttons you want to keep.
    tb = axtoolbar(ax);
    
    % Create a custom export button.
    btn = axtoolbarbtn(tb, 'push', 'Icon', 'export');
    
    % When the button is pushed, use copyobj to copy the axes into a new
    % figure
    btn.ButtonPushedFcn = @copyToNewFigure;
end

function copyToNewFigure(~,e)

f = figure;
t = tiledlayout(f,1,1);
ax = copyobj(e.Axes, t);
ax.Layout.Tile = 1;

end

[Benjamin Kraus]

And yet another version that fixes the layout issue and doesn't use a local function.

f = figure;
for n = 1:6
    ax = nexttile();
    plot(sin(linspace(0,2*pi,100)+(pi*n/3)))
    
    % Create a custom toolbar with no buttons
    % You can keep any of the buttons you want to keep.
    tb = axtoolbar(ax);
    
    % Create a custom export button.
    btn = axtoolbarbtn(tb, 'push', 'Icon', 'export');
    
    % When the button is pushed, use copyobj to copy the axes into a new
    % figure
    btn.ButtonPushedFcn = @(~,e) copyobj(e.Axes,tiledlayout(figure,'flow'));
end

[Paul Martellock]

Works great!

The comment indicates that I can keep the original buttons, how can I do that? I still would like keep datatips and zoom functions.

Thank you Benjamin!

[Benjamin Kraus]

If you want to keep the original toolbar buttons, you just need to specify them in a list when you call axtoolbar. Check the doc page for axtoolbar for more details.

tb = axtoolbar(ax,{'datacursor','zoomin','zoomout'});

[Paul Martellock]

Thanks again, now my application is just how I want it to work, with only a few lines of code changed.