menuN - Improved menu figure for Matlab

An extension of Matlab's menu function. A graphical user interface for input selection.
842 Downloads
Updated 16 Jan 2016

A powerful but simple to use graphical user interface menu in Matlab. Creates an automatically sized gui menu at the centre of the screen with the supplied figure title and waits for user input.
7 different types of menu styles are available: Push-button *, Radio-button *, Popup-menu/list *, Check box ^, List box ^, Slider and Text box. The styles marked by * represent exclusive selection, i.e. only one option can be selected. The styles marked by ^ represent multiple selection, i.e. none to all options can be selected. The slider style creates a slider which returns a numeric value in given range. The text box style returns the written text or numeric input that the user specifies in the edit/text box field.
A default selection/value/text is also possible to specify when applicable.
In addition to the different menu styles, multiple groups of options can be presented in the same menu to quickly create a small application specific user interface. This feature can also display subtitles for each option group.
The syntax and usage of menuN is similar to the Matlab function menu. However, some additional formats of the inputs and output have been added to make use of the additional features.

Syntax:
choice = menuN(mtitle, options)

mtitle - [string] - Title and message at the top of the menu window
- [cell of length 2] - {'Title','Message'} - Supply different title and message
options - [various] - Menu options

Style specific input options with examples:
Push-buttons: [cellstring array]
options = {'Choice 1','Choice 2','Choice 3'};
Note, this is similar to the syntax for menu.
Radio-buttons: [string starting with 'r|']
options = 'r|Choice 1|¤Choice 2|Choice 3';
Note, option marked with ¤ is set as default selection.
Popup-menu: [string starting with 'p|']
options = 'p|Choice 1|¤Choice 2|Choice 3';
Check-boxes: [string starting with 'x|']
options = 'x|Choice 1|¤Choice 2|¤Choice 3';
Note, options marked with ¤ are set ticked/checked as default.
List-box: [string starting with 'l|']
options = 'l|Choice 1|¤Choice 2|¤Choice 3';
Slider: [double array of length 2 or 3]
options = [startValue,endValue,defaultValue];
Note, defaultValue is optional, if not supplied the slider is placed in the middle.
Text-box: [string starting with 't|']
options = 't|My default text'; OR
options = 't|My default text|with multiple|lines'; OR
options = 't|1:1:25'; - [string starting with 't|']
Note, obvious numeric input (see third example) will be converted to numeric value(s).

Multiple option groups:
options - cell of size = [N, 2]
options{:, 1} - Any of the above styles except for the push-button.
options{:, 2} - Subtitle placed above the options specified on the same row.
Note, leave empty or blank '' if no subtitle should be displayed.
Output:
choice - [double, string, cell] - selected option index, value(s) or text

Note, if no option is selected, the window is closed, or the cancel button is clicked choice is NaN.
If multiple option groups are supplied, choice is a cell array of size [N, 1] with the correspondingly selected option/value/string on each row.

Examples:
Standard menu like call with push-buttons:
choice = menuN('Select color',{'Red','Green','Blue'});

Multiple selection using check-boxes:
choices = menuN({'Licence','I have read and agrees|with the following documents:'},'x|Licence.txt|Agreement2016.txt|Readme.txt');

A numeric value in a given range using a slider:
value = menuN({'Parameter select','Choose value for parameter A'},[0,25,9]);

Message of the day using text/edit-box:
string = menuN('Message of the day',['t|' datestr(today) ':||']);

Numeric value(s) using text/edit-box:
value = menuN('Loss parameter','t|4.6*10^-3');

Multitle option groups:
choiceCellArray = menuN({'Menu','Plotting toolbox'},{'r|¤Linear|Nearest','Interpolation method for|data plot';'x|Smooth|Plot|Save','Operations'});


Advanced mode:
choice = menuN(mtitle, options, Opt)
Opt - option structure which can be used to override default fontsizes, OK/Cancel button labels and gui sizes etc. Check the code for full list of options.

Cite As

Johan Winges (2024). menuN - Improved menu figure for Matlab (https://github.com/johwing/matlab_menu_gui), GitHub. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2015a
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
Categories
Find more on Migrate GUIDE Apps in Help Center and MATLAB Answers
Acknowledgements

Inspired by: 41 Complete GUI Examples

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!

Versions that use the GitHub default branch cannot be downloaded

Version Published Release Notes
1.70.0.0

Updated description for clarity. Added support for message under menu title. Updated figure with more examples.

1.61.0.0

Updated figure and description to reflect changes in V1.6. Updated help comment in code.

1.6.0.0

Added 'Cancel' button and native support for numeric data in text/edit boxes. Thanks for these suggestions.

1.5.0.0

Renamed to original name.

1.2.0.0

Connected to gitHub.
Updated slider listener bug introduced in Matlab R2014b.
Extended help comment with small additional examples.

1.1.0.0

Left aligned text in editbox.
Removed bug in automated width estimation.

1.0.0.0

To view or report issues in this GitHub add-on, visit the GitHub Repository.
To view or report issues in this GitHub add-on, visit the GitHub Repository.