Check if GUI is open

Hi everybody

I believe the answer to this question already exists several times online, but everything I tried failed.

I got in a GUI-figure the option to open an other GUI-figure. In the second GUI I got plots and the first one can update these plots. Therefore its interesting to know if the second GUI is already/still open when I activate the update.

I tried:

     ~isempty(findobj('Tag','figure2'))
     ~isempty(findobj('Tag','axesInFigure2'))
     ~isempty(get(groot,'figure2'))
     isgraphics(h,'figure2')

but I get the same result no matter if figure2 is open or not.

Is there an other way to get this information? I think of eventlisteners: figurehasbeenopened, figurehasbeenclosed

Thanks for help.

Answer 1

[Adam]

Keep hold of the handle of the figure when you launch it.

Then just do a

if ishghandle( otherFigureHandle )

or

if isgraphics( otherFigureHandle )

test when you want to see if it is open or not.

[Pollok Tim]

Thanks a lot, now its running.

-Keep hold of the handle of the figure when you launch it.-

I understood that I get the handle of figure2 in its own openingFcn like this

% Get handle of figure2
figure2 = findobj('Type','figure','name','figure2');
 % Saves figure2 for access in other .m-files
 setappdata(0,'figure2',figure2);

And when I check if its open I use

 % Get access to figure2
 hfigure2 = getappdata(0,'figure2 ');
 % either isgraphics() or ishghandle()
isgraphics(hfigure2);
ishghandle(hfigure2);

Both functions seem to work.

[Adam]

It depends where you are launching it from. I never use findobj myself (well, rarely) because I keep hold of all my handles if I need them in the future as e.g.

hFig = MyGUI(...)

to launch a GUI named MyGUI.

Then later on I can just use hFig. I can't tell from your question whether you mean you have a custom-made figure (e.g. from GUIDE) or whether you mean just a standard launched figure.

I would not recommend using

setappdata( 0,... )

generally, especially with common names like 'figure2', but if it works then ok. I don't use setappdata most of the time, but if I do I attach my data to a specific figure handle rather than the root object to keep it linked to the specific application.

Answer 2

[Benjamin Avants]

I know this question is old, but GUIDE created figures don't show up as results from findobj.

Instead, use

figure2handle = findall(0,'Tag','figure2');
if ~isempty(figure2handle)
    % figure exists
end

Answer 3

[Vahab Youssofzadeh]

Here's another solution:

h = get(0, 'Children');
isempty(findobj(h,'name','NAME OF THE GUI'));
% isempty (findobj (h,'tag','NAME OF THE GUI'));

Answer 4

[Nepenthes]

This is a little late, but I chanced upon this solution when tackling a similar problem. H.isvalid or isvalid(H) should work. H can be a single handle, or a vector of handles. K>> H = figure; K>> G = plot(rand(5)); K>> delete(G(3:4)); K>> G.isvalid ans = 1 1 0 0 1 K>> H.isvalid ans = 1 K>> delete(H) K>> H.isvalid ans = 0

Answer 5

[Kristoffer Walker]

None of the above seems to work for me when I am trying to detect if a GUI created from AppDesigner is open. Does anyone know how to do this with AppDesigner GUI's?

Best regards,

Kris