MATLAB Answers Wish-list #5 (and bug reports)

This is the 5th installment of the wish-list and bug report thread.

This topic is the follow on to the first Wish-list for MATLAB Answer sections and second MATLAB Answers Wish-list #2 (and bug reports). The third started out as New design of the forum - grey on white and the fourth MATLAB Answers Wish-list #4 (and bug reports) is also growing so large it is slow to load and navigate.

Same idea as the previous ones: one wish (or bug report) per answer, so that people can vote their wishes.

What should you post where?

Wishlist threads (#1 #2 #3 #4 #5): bugs and feature requests for Matlab Answers

Frustation threads (#1 #2): frustations about usage and capabilities of Matlab itself

Missing feature threads (#1 #2): features that you whish Matlab would have had

@anyone posting a new thread when the last one gets too large (about 50 answers seems a reasonable limit per thread), please update this list in all last threads. (if you don't have editing privileges, just post a comment asking someone to do the edit)

Answer 1

[Adam]

Has there been any further thought on changing what is considered a compulsory field for users asking a question? Title, body and tags appear to be still the only compulsory ones and some users are too lazy to put something intelligent in the tag field which allows you to type literally anything anyway.

Product is not compulsory and, as discussed previously, Release is locked until you select a product. This was the reason given last time I asked about this:

"With respect to the release drop-down being filtered, we do think this is important as it provides users with a smaller, pre-filtered list that is easier to use."

That was over a year ago and it still makes no more sense now than it did then given the reality. As another quick small sample, from the first page of questions just before I typed this, just 8 questions (excluding a Mathworks Tech Support team question) contained product information other than 'Matlab' (for which no releases would be filtered out anyway) and of those, just 5 contain the release. So not only is release locked until you enter the (optional) product, but it isn't compulsory even when you do enter the product. We're simply talking about a list of release numbers that a user has to select from. Having it almost useless just to make it 'easier to use' by filtering out a few releases is creating a 'solution' to a problem that didn't exist.

The release field seems fundamental to me and trivial to include properly. It clearly isn't working as it currently is because very few people fill in the release field. Surely the purpose of Matlab answers is to allow people to ask questions and get answers to them as smoothly as possible. So making it more difficult for the people answering the questions by not having release information just seems totally counter-intuitive. Obviously having the product compulsory for all questions would be a big help too, though again some users just put totally inappropriate products (Matlab Coder and Matlab compiler seem very popular!).

[Rik]

I disagreed with the reasoning then and I disagree with the reasoning now. Especially with the larger language changes it is important to know the release. Otherwise users with older releases are getting errors or users of newer releases don't take advantage of new syntax options.

• HG2 in R2014b
• implicit expansion in R2016b
• dot indexing of temporary variables in R2019b (the syntax myFunction(data).fieldA is now valid)

[Walter Roberson]

It is a nuisance that if I add another product to the list that the release information is discarded.

[Guillaume]

You get the same nuisance when you raise a bug through their web interface and it's just as annoying there.

I've suggested before to the developers to allow users to enter just a version number and if no product is select to default to matlab. I do think that version should be a compulsory field (with maybe a Not Applicable option for where it doesn't matter like this answer).

For what it's worth we (the CAB) have had several discussions with Mathworks on how to improve answers.

[Sindar]

on the tag note: if requiring, can there at least be a character limit warning "this is a bit long for a tag, are you asking a question in a tag?"

[Rik]

And the release ambiguity struck again: I should have noticed that the screenshots in this question showed an unusually dark background, looking an awful lot like HG1. If the release was a compulsory field, a lot of back and forth (leading to the discovery that the release in question was R2013a) would have been avoided.

Answer 2

[Rik]

Another nice-to-have feature: being able to move threads between the answer section and comments without having to repost them. One example of when it would be useful to only change the post type: this. In that thread there are 6 answers, each with some comments. I am not going to spend time finding out in what order they should be reposted, but if I could move the comment-answers (and their comments) to the comment section of one answer (or the question), that would solve the issue.

That thread is a relatively extreme example, but the problem of posting a comment in the answer section is a common occurence. I believe it has even been suggested that people should get a warning pop-up that they are about to post an answer to their own question (with the default option being 'post as comment').

[Guillaume]

This is something that we've been bugging Mathworks about for a long time and I know they're very aware of the need for it. Of course, the implementation have to be balanced with the need of more important features.

Answer 3

[Adam Danz]

Spell check for questions / answers / comments

A spell check option would improve the quality of content, reduce misunderstandings, and reduce the need to edit our comments. The spell checker would ignore blocks of formatted code which could serve a second purpose of reminding people to format their code when their variable names are all detected as misspellings.

Browser extensions such as grammarly do not work in this forum even though they work in other forums.

[David]

Thanks Adam, we are aware of this limitation, which is due to the way the wysiwyg editor works. While providing more functionality that the previous editor since it renders complex HTML behind the scenes it cannot take advantage of the default spellchecker(s) within most browsers. That being said, there are ways to get a spellchecker that we're actively looking into.

[Adam Danz]

Thanks for the heads up, David.

Answer 4

[Sindar]

Add a set of pre-written comments for common situations. Things like:

• "this is clearly a homework problem, please display some effort first"
• "god your formatting is terrible, here's how to do better..."
• "please give a minimal example, not 200 lines of code"
• "Saying 'it errored' is entirely useless, be more specific"
• "please go through the MATLAB onramp"

(The actual comment set should include complete instructions, and be slightly less hostile)

Having the ability to insert these comments would save us time, lead to friendlier interactions (we all get impatient), and give better info to questioners

[Rik]

I used to have a file from which I could copy-paste responses, but now with the new editor that doesn't really work well anymore. I now have alt+1 to alt+7 trigger an autohotkey script that types those responses. That way I still have the benefits of an automatic reply, as well as proper formatting. Guess what is under alt+1 (extra line breaks for readability):

Have a read [here](https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/6200-tutorial-how-to-ask-a-question-on-answers-and-get-a-fast-answer) 
and [here](https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/help/rtc#rtc_summary). 
It will greatly improve your chances of getting an answer.

[Guillaume]

This is actually a very good idea, Sindar. I'm not sure it could be implemented with the current interface, but certainly, it's something I'd like to see.

I always have to google the homework tutorial and the how to ask tutorial when I want to link it. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy/old to set up a system like Rik's.

[Rik]

@Guillaume: it's surprising how far you can get with a txt file in dropbox that you keep a bookmark for ;)

[Adam Danz]

I'd like to see these builtin templates as well.

[Walter Roberson]

I have a series of bookmarks in my browser menu bar that I copy out of the menu bar and paste in .

[Rena Berman]

This is actually already in consideration. Thanks for all of your feedback!!

Answer 5

[madhan ravi]

There is a feature called "Managed Followed Content" , would like to see a feature to be able to "bookmark/pin" questions within MATLAB Answers.

[David]

Thanks for sharing your idea Madhan. Can you say more about what you're thinking? What do you mean by bookmarking or pinning questions?

[Image Analyst]

I just add a bookmark to my Firefox bookmarks. That Firefox allows bookmarks while Chrome is sorely lacking in that capability is why I choose Firefox over Chrome.

[madhan ravi]

Hello David , thank you for the response.

Illustration:

Imagine if I find "Matlab answers wish list 5 and bug reports" question interesting. If I follow it I won't see this thread ever again if nobody answers it right? So what I do is now I pin this thread which option "would be" near to the follow button. One may ask how's it different than following it , my point would be that it would be far much easier than a followed thread. While I follow multiple threads per day which makes it hard for me to find the exact thread which drew my attention to. This pinned threads could be found next to "Managed Followed Content".

Sir Image Analyst: Your point is also valid but it would never equalize bookmarking/pinning within MATLAB Answers.

[Adam Danz]

I get email notifications on followed threads which can really flood the inbox after a while. Using gmail (and many other providers), a filter can be set to send the notifications to the trash unless content from their subject lines is listed in the filter. That's a relatively easy workaround to the problem.

But I can see how pinned content could be useful. For example, 'Pinned content' could be added to the dropdown menu at the top of the 'Follow' tab within the profile page.

[Sindar]

Agreed, this would be very useful. I prefer keeping my bookmarks relatively sparse so autocomplete works well, but could see myself favoriting several items a week. (Once you've got this, can you add "REALLY Favorites" so I can filter to the stuff I know I'll be using for months-years to come?)

[Adam Danz]

And then "Super Duper, Seriously, For-Real Favorites".

That highlights the limits of utility for the inevitable accumulation of pinned posts.

[David]

Thanks for the clarifications

Answer 6

[Mehmed Saad]

Someone is Typing (Whistlist)

This feature can be very usefull not for the questioner but for contributors. For example

1. Walter Roberson is typing a comment
2. Image analyist is typing an Answer

Pros:it can save contributors time

Cons: Dont know xD

Like this or a popup for someone who is answering the question (that two contributors are typing the answer)

[Adam Danz]

+ inf

[Rik]

Apart from the privacy-concerns, a good idea, but difficult to implement well.

[Adam Danz]

Well, if you're going to leave a comment, it's going to be public anyway. But I guess it would reveal the amount of time spent on a comment if anyone wanted to manually track that.

Some other potential Cons

• It may prevent people from adding their own answer if they see someone else is already doing so. This reduces the number and variety of answers.
• It may motivate people to rush their answer so it appears first, if they see that someone else is also typing. This may reduce qualtify of answers.

But I agree with the Pro that Mehmed noted: it would save time that could be devoted to an answer that no one is working on. Another pro: sometimes I'm writing a response while the OP is also writing a comment that answers the questions I'm about to ask. Those types of threads can become difficult to follow. If I see the OP is typing, I'd likely wait.

[Walter Roberson]

If I am typing something and I got notice that the original poster was also typing something, then I would want to be able to see what they wrote (when it gets posted) without losing what I have written (as would happen if I refreshed). Perhaps a "Save Draft" feature?

[Adam Danz]

@Walter Roberson, sometimes I get a notification that OP left a comment while I'm constructing a response. In those cases, I usually either

1. Open the thread in a new tab to see what OP wrote while my content is preserved in the original tab.
2. Copy-paste what I've written into a text doc so that I can paste it back into the forum when needed.

[madhan ravi]

@Adam I usually use the first point you mentioned.

Answer 7

[Sindar]

Being able to collapse items in the activity feed would be useful. Fairly regularly, I have 3-7 items for "X commented and edited their comment 5 times." Occasionally, I'll have a full page of items related to a longer discussion (usually on one of these meta-threads). It would be useful if I could manually (or Mathworks automatically) collapse large sets into single concise items ("X,Y,Z commented 30 times on an answer to the question What frustrates you about MATLAB? #2"). This would make it easier to scan my log without worrying about missing a more relevant item in the noise

[Walter Roberson]

Yes, I agree. I know this has been proposed to Mathworks more than once.

[Adam Danz]

Yep, I'd like that too.

[Rik]

This can happen especially when some users many several smaller edits in a row to the same comment/answer. It would be nice if those were merged in the first place.

Answer 8

[madhan ravi]

It would be better if there is a feature that warns when the first word of the poster is Write. Because at the end the poster edits away the question making the thread look pointless wasting the answerers time.

[Rik]

Alternatively it would be a solution if there is a restore point created each time an answer is posted. Then it would be easy to undo such an edit.

[madhan ravi]

Yes that what would be better too!

[Rik]

I have the feeling this problem is getting worse, so a capture of the question at the time it is answered would really be nice. I hope it gets better when exam season is over.

[madhan ravi]

Exactly!

[Adam Danz]

This problem is definitly becoming more frequent. Here are some other suggestions.

1. Users with sufficient reputation can flag other users who delete their questions. This flag will be visible in the stack of questions or when the thread is opened.
2. A change-detection could detect when a certain percentage of content from a question is edited or removed which would trigger a confirmation dialog that requires the user to confirm the change and would warn the user that their profile will be flagged if the content is edited-away.
3. First-time-posters or first-time-in-a-while posters have to accept a displayed agreement that their question-content could be edited but not removed or obfuscated so that users are aware that they are giving up their rights to privacy.

[Sindar]

Additional idea for deletion issue: keep a record of deleted questions in users' Contributions log

For identifying low-quality or suspicious questions: don't allow questions that are just an image

Answer 9

[Image Analyst]

In Firefox v67, if you click on the m-file attached to a question, it offers to open it in MATLAB. But if I say to open it in MATLAB, it opens a new instance of MATLAB instead of using the existing, already open instance. Plus to make things worse, it does not even open the m-file at all. It just launches MATLAB with all your old m-files open.

[Walter Roberson]

This is not happening for me on Mac.

[Image Analyst]

It does however set the current folder to the temporary folder where the m-file gets downloaded to, however it doesn't go so far as to actually open the file in an editor window.

Answer 10

[Adam Danz]

Expand/Collapse all comments

This goes back to Matt Tearle's request in the first wish list (2011). An expand/collapes toggle button would be useful so we can search a page without having to expand all of the comments. For example, find "lOVIT" in this thread.

This feature already exists in the MathWorks documentation:

[Guillaume]

FWIW, with the new 'less blank space' layout recently introduced, I suggested that all comments should be expanded by default. It's very rare that the first I do not do is expand the comments when looking at a post.

[Walter Roberson]

Well, I don't want all the comments expanded when I read this post. Or the one about error -9. Lots of history that is mostly irrelevant to the immediate concerns.

[Adam Danz]

I would favor load-time over comment-accessibility. Some pages with lots of comments take quite a while to load. Even in the documentation, I often "collapse all in page" before scrolling through the page so I can find a section faster.

Answer 11

[per isakson]

Don't encourage the use of "matlab" and "simulink", by showing them as popular tags. Instead, encourage the use of the Product field.

[Image Analyst]

Yes, I bring that up constantly at board meetings. Should be really easy to fix but they just never seem to do it. Plus on the list is a better curated list of prepopulated tag suggestions. I've been bringing these up for literally like 5 or 6 years.

In fact every day or two I go in and remove the totally useless "matlab code" from 10 to 30 posts. Plus remove the "matlab coder" tag from posts that have nothing whatsoever to do with the coder toolbox. In fact, usually posters will put matlab, matlab code, matlab coder, and code ALL in there so I have to remove 4 tags on hundreds of posts per week. And often they'll throw in "help, help me, and problem" just to pile on the useless tags.

Answer 12

[Mario Malic]

When user sorts questions for which answer has not been accepted, the questions are found in two different sections. I believe this lowers the visibility of questions and adds an extra effort for the users who would like to help/contribute due to the fact that they have to filter by both statuses.

Filter by Status needs an addition or change: unsolved and solved. Furthermore, in unsolved status, there can be another one: answered/unanswered.

[Image Analyst]

How are you doing the initial filtering? Is it by these links:

or some other way? How would you change the above? Do you want "Answer Accepted" to be called "Solved" and "Answered" to be called "Answered and Solved"? Some posts that have not been officially "Accepted" are considered solved by the person(s) posting the answer(s), it's just that the original poster never accepted any answer.

[Mario Malic]

Yes, those links.

Maybe something like this, where 'Answered' and 'Unanswered' would be grouped under one status, with the possibility of further filtering it. If questions are sorted by 'Date updated (Newest-Oldest)', all relevant questions will be higher in the feed. The questions that have received an answer that solves the issue, but have not been accepted yet, will not be updated and they will be lower in the feed.

• Solved (Answer accepted)
• Unsolved
• - Answered
• - Not answered

[Image Analyst]

I agree that would be more explicit and intuitive

Answer 13

[Mario Malic]

Users who edit away the questions get an explicit warning not to do it again. Freeze account/remove rights to post questions/answers/comments for some period of time. Might be a bit harsh, so some alterations are welcome.

Answer 14

[Image Analyst]

When we insert a hyperlink into Answers from chain link button tool on the tool ribbon, the focus/cursor is not in the "Display Text" or "Target URL" field. It should be in one of them, preferably the Target URL field because I have a link in the clipboard all ready to be pasted in and I'd like to do that as soon as possible. Save us a step and put the cursor in one of the edit fields.

[Guillaume]

Yes, as I complained early on, I find the hyperlink dialog completely useless.

On the other hand, I don't bother with it. It's much easier to insert a url by typing [text to display ](actual url) which gets autoconverted into a url when you type the closing ). Much faster as it doesn't require reaching for the mouse.

[Jan]

When I press the icon for insterting a link in Firefox/Windows, I get a greyed out page only, but not any dialog. I have to click in the background and press escape to get control over the page again. Which browser is working better?

[Walter Roberson]

Jan: Interestingly, I do not encounter that problem on Firefox for Mac.

[Guillaume]

On the rare occasion that I do use the dialog, I've not encountered that problem either. Firefox on Windows (various FF versions on various computers with either win7 or win10).

[Walter Roberson]

These days the focus is in the target URL section -- that is, this is implemented.

Answer 15

[Image Analyst]

Firefox scrolling issue not fixed. I don't know if this happens in other browsers but if I go to comment or answer, the top of the edit box is off the top of the screen, so if I start typing immediately I can't see what I typed. I need to scroll down. It updates the screen with a nice sized edit box, but the top of it should not be above the viewable area.

[Rik]

Sometime on Chrome I scroll up to read a part of the question. Normally if I start typing again, the browser will scroll me to the text box, but under some circumstances which I can't seem to reproduce, this doesn't happen correctly. Maybe the two are related, although browsers being browsers they probably aren't.

[Bob Nbob]

I think the issue is similar on Explorer (not sure if that is even still supported these days). Specifically, if I type a long response, it seems like once I reach a certain length then I get the same typing below my screen issue. I can scroll down to view what I have typed, but as soon as I enter or remove a new character then the view jumps back up too high.

I don't remember if viewing other tabs, or scrolling up to not be looking at the edit window is also a factor, but I know that length is 'consistent.'

[Guillaume]

I used to run in the scrolling bug fairly often and it really made writing answers a pain (I gave up a few times). However, since we were told that the bug had been fully fixed, I've not seen it even once.

Nonetheless, I've alerted the developers of this discussion. It would be nice if they could tell us the cause of the bug before, so we know if it's still the same bug.

[Image Analyst]

They fixed the one bug where every time you typed a letter it would scroll to the top if your message got longer than the viewing window, but there is still a bug where right when you start a reply, the top of the edit box is above the viewing window in the browser. Not sure if they're related or if it's a new bug.

[Rik]

Thanks, I thought something was crawling over my screen XD

[madhan ravi]

I just panicked for a moment when I saw the comment with a bug crawling ;)

[Image Analyst]

I'm not experiencing the scrolling off the top of the screen issue anymore. I think I've maybe updated Firefox since then. So maybe it was a Firefox issue that's been fixed. I'm now using Firefox version 68.0. I'll continue to see if the issue arises again.

Answer 16

[madhan ravi]

Whenever a text is edited by mobile [safari browser] , the click produces superfluous three letters " ltr " , which is really frustrating.

[Rik]

I think it is odd how untested this editor feels for mobile. They probably put hours into testing for mobile as well, but as an end-user it doesn't feel that way.

[madhan ravi]

True ;), hope it gets fixed soon as well.

Answer 17

[Adam]

I realised I posted this in the ancient wishlist thread before.

Can we not have some white space back between answers? Since the last update all answers just roll into each other which looks frankly awful, almost to the point of being unusable for threads with multiple answers. White space is a good thing, in a forum as well as in code!

Different answers can often be significantly different. They shouldn't just flow straight into each other as though the 2nd was just a comment or continuation of a conversation in the 1st answer.

[Guillaume]

Yes, several of us CAB members have already asked for this to be changed. Hopefully, this will be included in the next update.

[Kent Millard]

Thanks for your feedback Adam. We’ve received several comments on the redesign and are actively collecting feedback. If you’re available, we’d like to contact you directly to get more specific information from you. Thanks again.

Best – Kent (User Experience for Answers)

[per isakson]

Yes, better separation between answers would be good. However, more white space would not, since less visible text and more scrolling.

Better separation may be better achieved by putting the header/title stuff on a pale tint-plate (background color rectangle).

[Adam]

My profile is set to not let random people contact me, but Mathworks should have my address (I receive e-mails for the board editors) and are welcome to get in touch using that for any information you wish..

[Adam]

The location of the 'Answer this Question' button is annoying too.

Probably about 80-90% of my contributions are comments, usually on the question itself, but when you type your comment (assuming you managed to click the link to comment rather than answer in the first place), you have a small 'Submit' button and a much bigger 'Answer this Question' button right underneath it, shouting to be clicked. So far I have accidentally hit that button instead of the 'Submit' button numerous times.

It's all part of the same idea of needing to squash everything up rather than just spread things out so question, comments and answer clearly have their own obvious space.

We already used to have too many new people adding answers instead of comments.

[Guillaume]

Yes, it is also something we've complained about. Indeed with the new design I've accidentally posted an answer when I meant to post a comment, something I'd never done before. My suggestion was to move the button to the right. Yair's suggestion was to get rid of it altogether, not a bad idea as it forces potential answerers to actually scroll past (and thus read) answers.

Some things work very well with the new design (highlighted accepted answer, highlighted OP posts, structure of comments, less whitespace), others not so much. The whitespace cull may have been too aggressive.

[Walter Roberson]

With the new arrangement I have sometimes been accidentally posting as a Comment to the Question when I meant to post as an Answer.

Answer 18

[madhan ravi]

Why is there a lag in the recent activity page? This has never happened before.

[Walter Roberson]

lags in Recent Activity and Activity Feed have been known to happen; sometimes the feeding process crashes.

That said, I am not observing any lag myself.

[madhan ravi]

:/ I seem to have ~ 1 min lag

[Rik]

I haven't noticed any particular lag, but a 1 minute lag is not unusual for me. If I recall correctly there was a several hour long lag for multiple people one time a while back, which I only noticed after it was resolved.

[madhan ravi]

Hmm didn’t know at all.

Answer 19

[Rik]

A soft-lock for questions, similar to StackExchange.

This soft-lock would prevent low/no-reputation users (e.g. <5) from posting answers in threads that have the same answer over and over again, like the date validation assignment, the school admission assignment, and the picker function assignment (each of these probably have multiple incarnations). One example of a non-homework thread with this issue is this thread, which contains a stream of complaints and single-word answers.

That last one is probably due to people not being allowed to post a comment to the question, so the only button is 'answer this question', which seems like poor design IMHO.

[Rik]

I'm now starting to tag these threads with "soft-lock" in case this ever becomes possible.

[Rik]

This soft-lock would also be usefull for thread like this one, to force people to post new answers in the new threads.

[Adam Danz]

Large threads like this also need a mechanism to speed up the page loading time.

I prefer a mechanims that shows collapsed answers that require an expansion to view nested comments after the number of answers exceeds a threshold and the nested comments would load only when expanded. Additionally, a second greater threshold could be set to initialize a "view more" option such that only the first 'n' answers would appear in order of votes. These larger threads often consume so much load-time that I'm reluctant to view new answers/comments.

[Rik]

Until such features as you suggest are implemented, splitting the threads seems the only viable option. I share your point, especially on mobile I don't bother to open up the long threads.

Answer 20

[madhan ravi]

Not mandatory but a replying feature to a specific comment would be nice.

Answer 21

[Rik]

Editor support on mobile seems not fully tested. (I'm using Android 9 (Lineage OS), with Chrome as browser and Swiftkey as the keyboard)

This morning I tried editing an answer, but I got the new editor, which meant I couldn't select text and click the code button. When posting a comment I suddenly got the workaround (the old style editor with a preview window).

I tried setting the browser to desktop mode, but then all the admin tools disappeared, so I couldn't edit the answer anymore.

[Walter Roberson]

The old style editor can be used for new content and for editing content that was created before the new style editor was turned on.

[Rik]

Hmm. I can understand the compatibility-issues this would prevent, but it is still something that is waiting for a more optimal solution.

[Guillaume]

The current implementation was implemented as a workaround for the fact that the new editor was completely unusable on mobiles. It's certainly not supposed to be like that but until the new editor actually works on mobiles that's what we're stuck with.

Answer 22

[Rik]

Maybe this idea has been suggested before, but maybe it would be good to have a down vote button. I sometimes see answers of questionable quality, where I don't know where to start to explain why it is such a bad idea. I don't think they should be outright deleted, and a flag doesn't really seem the solution either.

Is this something that I will just have to learn to deal with? Or is there some feature that would solve this?

(obviously I will not link to any recent examples, but you could look up some of my embarrassing first answers)

[Walter Roberson]

If I recall correctly we decided against downvotes early on, feeling that it would be better to comment or to post better answers (that might include material showing that the alternative would not work)

Answer 23

[darova]

I want a button for spoiler

Can't believe there is no such option on this forum

[Rik]

What would be your use case on this forum?

[Adam]

Would that just be for making answers look shorter initially, like collapsing code or a tree? I don't use all that many forums so apart from obvious purposes where the term 'spoiler' makes more sense I'm not too familiar with its usage. I wouldn't have thought spoilers are really a concept in a Matlab forum?!

[Guillaume]

Whether it would be useful or not is debatable and considering that lots of people struggle to use the formatting tools that are already there, I fear it would be another thing we (editors) would spend time fixing.

In any case, the answer editor is using the matlab online editor, so the feature would have to be implemented by the matlab online team first. I don't see that happening.

[darova]

The asnwer could be shorter and clearer

Some comment1

[spoiler]LONG CODE[/spoiler]

Some comment2

[spoiler]LONG CODE[/spoiler]

[Rik]

Automatically collapsing code blocks that contain more than 10 lines or so might indeed be a useful thing. I would argue against something like that being user-controlable because than we get the scenario Guillaume is describing.

[Image Analyst]

It might be used for homework answers where you give a hint first, then the hidden spoiler below it. However I don't see any student who would just take the hint and not reveal the answer hidden by the spoiler button.

Or maybe for riddles/jokes??

[darova]

Can someone please vote for my answer?

Answer 24

[Star Strider]

It would be nice to have advance warning of some type that the site is going down for maintenance, and how long it will be until it will be back up.

For me today it was down from 17:00 UCT 29 Jan 2020 until 03:00 UCT 30 Jan 2020. Some parts are still not back up.

[Walter Roberson]

Odd, I did not notice any downtime during that interval.

[Steven Lord]

The Application Status page linked from this blog post shows no downtime for MATLAB Answers or any of our sites during January. The last listed in the history was December 18th.

[Star Strider]

I was able to access everything else on the Internet (including the online MATLAB documentation) except ‘MATLAB Answers’ and ‘My MATLAB Answers’ (that is still down).

This is what I got during those 8 hours (URL: http://www99.mathworks.com/outage.html):

so it was definitely a MathWorks problem. After I again got access to Answers, I noticed that others were able to post during that time. I am definiitely not happy about the outage!

I sent Rena an email asking what was going on.

On the upside, I was able to install R2019b Update 4. I got no notifications, and only learned it was available when someone else posted about not being able to run MATLAB after installing it.

[Star Strider]

@Steven — It was offline for me most of the day today. I’m still having problems with parts of my site. I have no idea what’s going on.

[Guillaume]

Yes, something odd was going on yesterday. When I refreshed my activity feed just before going home, I got the Planned maintenance page that Star showed. However, I could go to the matlab central landing page which shows a list of questions on answer and could access the questions listed there without any issue. From the central page, clicking on 'Matlab Answers' at the top also got me the 'planned maintenance'.

So, part of Anwsers did go offiline (and clearly it wasn't planned!)

[David]

This outage was unplanned and we're still looking into the cause.I'll post more as we zero in on the root cause.

[Image Analyst]

I was on frequently yesterday and the day before and I never got any "unavailable" message. I'm in the USA and (I guess) use the USA server.

[David]

Thanks for the info @Image Analyst. We don't think the issue was affecting all users but perhaps some users in some locations or some users at specfic times.

Answer 25

[madhan ravi]

Why is it impossible to copy paste code from MATLAB mobile?

[Anusha Sridharan]

Hi Madhan, Thanks for bringing this up!

Can you tell me a little bit more about your exact workflow and where the copy/paste doesn't seem to be working? I checked on MATLAB Mobile and I seem to be able to copy/paste from the command window as well as the editor.

I am a developer on the Community team and we're currently working on a project to provide better integration between MATLAB Mobile and Answers, so understanding your use-case would be helpful for that.

[madhan ravi]

Thank you Anusha for the response. For instance I’m able to copy paste any characters outside MATLAB Mobile except inside it. MATLAB Online (Version 8) iOS.

PS: I just checked in my App Store before commenting updated the app to version 8.1 and now seems to work correctly:).

[Walter Roberson]

MATLAB Mobile (for Android) is a nuisance for copying characters out of. You can select and copy output, and you can select and copy input, but you cannot select a mixed region (as you might well want to do in order to post a trace showing commands and related output)

[Anusha Sridharan]

Thanks @Walter, I have shared your feedback with the MATLAB Mobile team.

@Madhan, Good to know that it is working after the update!

Answer 26

[Adam Danz]

I just realized today that you can name a table variable with leading or trailing whitespace which prevents you from accessing that variable from the table using dot notation. A space could be added accidentally and it's difficult to see the space from the table displayed in the command window so it's not immediately obvious what the problem is. I can't imagine a benefit to allowing leading/trailing whitespace in variable names. (r2020a)

Table functions should either trim the leading/trailing white space or throw an error when it's detected.

Here's a demo for trailing whitespace

T = table(1,0,'VariableNames',{'A', 'B '}); 
% Notice the extra space -------------^

% The space is visible but not noticeable unless you're looking for it.  
% T =
%   1×2 table
%     A    B 
%     _    __   <-- slighly longer bar
%     1    0 

% Now access the variables

K>> T.A
% ans =
%      1
     
K>> T.B% no space
% Unrecognized table variable name 'B'. 

K>> T.B % +1 space
% Unrecognized table variable name 'B'. 

% This works when space is added
K>> T(:,'B ')
% ans =
%   table
%     B 
%     __
%     0 

% You can see the space in the VariableNames
K>> T.Properties.VariableNames
% ans =
%   1×2 cell array
%     {'A'}    {'B '}

Here's a demo for leading whitespace

T = table(1,0,'VariableNames',{'A', ' B'}); 
% Notice the extra space ------------^

% T =
%   1×2 table
%     A     B
%     _    __  <-- slighly longer bar
%     1    0 

K>> T.A
% ans =
%      1
     
K>> T.B% no space
% Unrecognized table variable name 'B'. 

K>> T. B% +1 space
% Unrecognized table variable name 'B'. 

% This works when space is added
K>> T(:,' B')
% ans =
%   table
%      B
%     __
%     0 

% You can see the space in the VariableNames
K>> T.Properties.VariableNames
% ans =
%   1×2 cell array
%     {'A'}    {' B'}

[Image Analyst]

Yeah, allowing spaces in column/field names for tables was recently added. I noticed it too. I guess it makes the table look nice when you look at it but it seems the only way to refer to that column is by the number instead of the name.

[Walter Roberson]

T.(' B')     %way to refer to variable by name

[Adam Danz]

I partially concede. It is nice to have the extra flexibility to make the table headers look nice. The syntax Walter shared also lets us access any combination of characters in table variable names such as T.('NY st. #1')

But I still don't see much benefit of allowing leading/trailing whitespace.

[Sean de Wolski]

It makes it so what you put in is what you get out. If you read a file or something with obscure info and want to map directly to the variable name there's nothing you need to worry about. If it was deblank-ed there'd be a mismatch.

[Walter Roberson]

for example people pull out Properties.VariableNames and manipulate those including ismember(). Should not need to know to strtrim(), and there is no "compare ignoring leading and trailing whitespace" function

[Adam Danz]

If whitespace were trimmed when comparing variable names, all of the following variable names would be the same.

T = table(1,2,3,4,5,'VariableNames',{'A',' A ',' A','A ','A  '})
% T =
%   1×5 table
%     A     A      A    A     A  
%     _    ___    __    __    ___
%     1     2     3     4      5 

I guess it's up to the user to realize what the variable names are or to carefully check them in T.Properties.VariableNames.

[Steven Lord]

Looking at those variables names at a higher level, where did they come from? If they came from a file being imported (as Sean suggested may be the case) I'd ask the person who created the file (or owns the code or process that creates that file) if the leading or trailing spaces are significant and if it is possible to modify the creation process if they aren't.

Even if it isn't possible, if they're not significant you could replace the variable names with unique names sans "external" spacing.

T = table(1,2,3,4,5,'VariableNames',{'A',' A ',' A','A ','A  '})
VN = T.Properties.VariableNames;
uniqueVN = matlab.lang.makeUniqueStrings(strip(VN));
T2 = renamevars(T, VN, uniqueVN)

[Sean de Wolski]

Or if you're reading the table from a file disable PreserveRowNames which makes a valid name for you. https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2020a/matlab/ref/readtable.html#d120e1046459

Answer 27

[madhan ravi]

Why is it not possible to see the code button when editing a comment in mobile?

[Rik]

(background: I use Chrome with a Swiftkey keyboard on Android)

As I understand it, the mobile website still uses the old editor, because there were major issues with some keyboards. Once you edit a post in the new editor it is no longer possible to use the old editor fallback, so editing on mobile becomes a pain.

So which code button do you mean? Because I see the respective code buttons. Can you share a screenshot?

[madhan ravi]

Thanks Rik, I’m using safari in my iPhone.

[Walter Roberson]

Unfortunately in the mobile editor, you cannot select text, which makes the code button much less useful.

The work-around is to insert at least one space at the beginning of the first line of each "paragraph" of code. The effect ends at the first empty line. Adding a space at the beginning of each line of code works too, but is a bit of a nuisance for longer blocks of code.

[madhan ravi]

Yes sir Walter :(

Answer 28

[madhan ravi]

Just an opinion. It would be great to restrict fake biased account created to just to vote.

[Rik]

Is this a big issue? I have never noticed it myself.

[madhan ravi]

Eh actually no it's not a big issue . Getting a reward is different from buying a reward.

Answer 29

[madhan ravi]

What's happening in mobile versions of MATLAB Answers?? I just a blank space to type something without the code button and the other formatting tools.

[David]

My version looks like this. Perhaps clear your browser cache? The mobile version of MATLAB Answers uses the older editor which may be why it looks different.

[madhan ravi]

Yes David after clearing cache , its alright now. Any reasons why it might have happened?

[Adam Danz]

Mine.

[Walter Roberson]

The Answers server code was upgraded a few days ago.

[madhan ravi]

Ah I see now, the toggle button seems interesting and makes it easier to find the crucial details of a comment/question/answer.

Answer 30

[Walter Roberson]

HTML links that are inside Monospace are not clickable, and their link destination cannot be read out by hovering over them. They still show up as blue though.

See for example https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/555100-zcv-variable-potential-conflicting-usages-of-identifier

[madhan ravi]

I’m able to access it.

[per isakson]

With my Firefox/Win10 "'current_controller'" is blue, but the cursor doesn't change to a hand when hovering over it. And clicking has no effect.