Creating Graphical User Interfaces

Front-to-Back Positioning

MATLAB figures maintain separate stacks that control the front-to-back positioning for different kinds of components:

• User interface controls such as buttons, sliders, and pop-up menus
• Panels, button groups, and axes
• ActiveX controls

You can control the front-to-back positioning of components that overlap only if those components are in the same stack. For overlapping components that are in different stacks:

• User interface controls always appear on top of panels, button groups, axes, and ActiveX controls they overlap.
• Panels, button groups, and axes always appear on top of ActiveX controls.

The Layout Editor provides four operations that enable you to control front-to-back positioning:

• Bring to Front -- move the selected object(s) in front of nonselected objects (available from the right-click context menu, the Layout menu, or the Ctrl+F shortcut).
• Send to Back -- move the selected object(s) behind nonselected objects (available from the right-click context menu, the Layout menu, or the Ctrl+B shortcut).
• Bring Forward -- move the selected object(s) forward by one level, i.e., in front of the object directly forward of it, but not in front of all objects that overlay it (available from the Layout menu).
• Send Backward -- move the selected object(s) back by one level, i.e., behind the object directly in back of it, but not behind all objects that are behind it (available from the Layout menu).

Aligning Components to Guide Lines

Setting Component Properties -- The Property Inspector

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