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This is the 6th 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 and fifth also grew so large they are 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?
Next Gen threads (#1): features that would break compatibility with previous versions, but would be nice to have
@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)
This is not a question, but a point of discussion for the entire community. I am aware that every 1/2 months this theme comes out, but until this is not fixed it is totally necessary that this comes, indeed, out. And I said "fix" because Mathworks has to understand that a dark theme is not only a visual/aesthetic matter, it is a substantial part of the game. Most of the OS, GUIs, programs are actually in dark mode, and a vast majority of the users makes indeed use of a global dark mode. How much one does like it is personal, but the benefits to power savings and eye health is instead a fact. Mathworks being ignoring this for years is nothing but ridiculous. Of course it is not an easy task, but every minute of committment for it is worthy. And nope, Schemer is not helpful because it does not provide a real fix to this question.
I feel free to suggest something similar to the Spyder's dark theme, which came out like 2 years ago if I remember correctly.
Of course, my point is not being disrespectful (I am instead very respectful to the huge efforts of Mathworks for making this wonderful program run). But, form a user's point of view, the fact that not a single word has so far come out from Mathworks about a dark theme (meaning that for sure we will not see it in a timing of months) requires us to put a strong pressure on this.
Mathworks, please: it's time for a dark theme.
Let's say MathWorks decides to create a MATLAB X release, which takes a big one-time breaking change that abandons back-compatibility and creates a more modern MATLAB language, ditching the unfortunate stuff that's around for historical reasons. What would you like to see in it?
I'm thinking stuff like syntax and semantics tweaks, changes to function behavior and interfaces in the standard library and Toolboxes, and so on.
(The "X" is for major version 10, like in "OS X". Matlab is still on version 9.x even though we use "R20xxa" release names now.)
What should you post where?
Next Gen threads (#1): features that would break compatibility with previous versions, but would be nice to have
@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)
Is anyone else disappointed with uifigures? It seems apparent that these will eventually replace traditional figures, but there is still so much that doesn't quite work. I've tinkered with uifigures since their introduction in release 2016a, but even in 2020a I can't reliably export a uifigure to a graphics file. Sure it works sometimes, but not if a uipanel is present. The exportgraphics command is not as powerful as the print command, leaving some graphic formats (such as *.svg and *.eps) unsupported. How do you generate graphic files of a specific size? You can't even use subplots without overriding the default AutoResizeChildren setting!
Everything with uifigures seems to be slower and less stable than the figure variant. App Designer is much better than GUIDE, but that is not exactly high praise. I would rather generate "apps" programatically across several files instead of dealing with a single-file class definition containing 1000+ lines.
Where is this transition going? MATLAB graphics are moving away from Java in favor of JavaScript, and I'm not sure that we are at all ready for that.
Meta threads have a tendency to grow large. This has happened several times before (the wishlist threads #1 #2 #3 #4 #5, and 'What frustrates you about MATLAB?' #1 and #2).
No wonder that a thread from early 2011 has also kept growing. After just under a decade there are (at time of writing) 119 answers, making the page slow to load and navigate (especially on mobile). So after a friendly nudge; here is a new thread for the things that are missing from Matlab.
Same question: are there things you think should be possible in Matlab, but aren't? What things are possible with software packages similar to Matlab that Matlab would benefit from? (note that you can also submit an enhancement request through support, although I suspect they will be monitoring activity on this thread as well)
What should you post where?
Next Gen threads (#1): features that would break compatibility with previous versions, but would be nice to have
@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)
Similar to what has happened with the wishlist threads (#1 #2 #3 #4 #5), the "what frustrates you about MATLAB" thread has become very large. This makes navigation difficult and increases page load times.
So here is the follow-up page.
What should you post where?
Next Gen threads (#1): features that would break compatibility with previous versions, but would be nice to have
@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)
After reading Rik's comment I looked for a list of Matlab releases and their corresponding features. Wiki: Matlab contains an exhaustive list, but what about having a lean version directly in the forum?
If this is useful, feel free to expand the list and to insert additions. Thank you.
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?
Next Gen threads (#1): features that would break compatibility with previous versions, but would be nice to have
@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)
Dear MATLAB community,
How can I help my close friend who's bad at math and programming learn MATLAB?
He's a final year chemical engineering student who struggles even to plot two functions on the same graph in his computational fluid dynamics class (there was no prereq for matlab skills).
In his first year, I saw him get dragged through the introductory engineering classes which was his first encounter with MATLAB. Students were taught a few rudimentary programming skills and then were expected to make a code for a 'simple' tic-tac-toe game. It took him hours of blank looks and tutoring to even understand the simplest of boolean operators. He was never able to write a working function without the supervision of a friend or tutor. Needless to say, he was permanently scarred by the experience and swore to avoid using it forever.
After 3 years of avoiding MATLAB, he realised how not knowing it hurt him during his final year project. He had to solve a system of pdes to model the performance of a reactor and practically speaking, MATLAB was the most suitable software at hand. He ended up having to get a friend to help him code the equations in while also having to oversimplify his model.
The weird thing is that: most students from his chemical engineering faculty were not expected or encouraged to use MATLAB, almost all of their prior assignments required no use of MATLAB except that infamous first year course, and most of his peers also avoided using MATLAB and resorted to Excel. It is my understanding that Excel cannot match MATLAB's efficiency and clarity when solving calculus problems so it was not uncommon to see extremely long Excel spreadsheets.
Anyway, my friend is, with the help of a friend's past year MATLAB codes, trying to finish up his computational fluid dynamics assignment that's due soon. He finishes university in 2 weeks time.
Even though he knows that not every engineer has to use MATLAB in the workplace, he somehow wishes he was able to learn MATLAB at his glacial pace. I find it such a pity that he was never able to keep up with the pace of learning that was expected which begs the question: are students who are too slow at learning programming better of in a different field of study?
If you've managed to read to the end of this, thank you so much. I just don't know how to help my friend and I'm hoping some of you might be able to suggest how I can help him be better at it. I believe he has potential but needs special help when it comes to MATLAB.
All helpful and constructive suggestions considered,
Thank You All
Hi there! This is kind of an unusual question, but here it goes. I am a big time Matlab enthusiast and I met some of your representatives at Formula Student Germany back in August. There was a booth were your product was showcased but most importantly there was Matlab merchandise such as stickers, rub-on-tattoos and pens with the mathworks logo being handed out. This merchandise is increadibly popular with me and my nerdy friends. But sadly I didnt bring much with me from the event. Is it possible to get ahold some of it? Is it for sale? Are you willing to sponsor some geeky engineering students?
I am new in MATLAB programming. I want to learn matlab . I want to know about is any matlab or simulink contest available. Please answer me. Thanks
What should you post where?
Next Gen threads (#1): features that would break compatibility with previous versions, but would be nice to have
@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)
This topic is for features you would like to see for the MATLAB Answers facility itself, and also for bug reports about the MATLAB Answers facility.
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). Those grew large enough to become unwieldy; and Mathworks has made enough changes to make a number of the past points no longer of relevance. More recently there was the limited purpose New design of the forum - grey on white which turned into a bug and wish list; I have renamed that for continuity.
I suggest one wish (or bug report) per answer, so that people can vote their wishes.
I've opened MATLAB Answers this morning and found the new design.
The field for typing the "Body" does not consider the font settings of my browser anymore, such that my preference of sans-serif fonts is ignored. In addition the text color is a medium gray, which is hard to read for me due to the too light contrast.
Blank lines in the code let two separate code boxes appear. This makes almost all code, I've posted in the forum, invalid. It has been discussed repeatedly, that blank lines in the code confuse the indentation of the display in the forum and that this is a really bad idea. But instead of improving this, it is made severely worse now.
The new design contains even more white space, such that standard questions cannot be answered without extensive vertical scrolling. It is a very bad drawback, that I cannot see the question while I type the answer.
There is still no suggestion to use a proper code formatting, such that I have to spend 20% of my forum time typing corresponding comments as before.
But I'm coming back to the most important problem for me: It is a physical problem for me to read the low contrast grey on white text. Does anybody know a tweak or CSS trick to increase the readability?
TMW, please take into account that this new design is physically hard to read for people without young and 100% perfect eyes. This is very annoying for me.
Splitting code blocks at white lines is simply a bug. I cannot imagine why this error has not been detected before the new design has been published. The argument, that TMW is extremely conservative with changes in the forum to ensure a stability does not convince me anymore.
[EDITED] The box around the thread, the preview box, the boxes for preformatted text and code have a grey background now. So some text is even medium grey on light grey.
I'd be glad if the designers refocus on the purpose of the forum. Whatever this purpose might be, the optical reception of the characters is fundamental.
What MATLAB tools or functions have you been thinking about making but haven't quite gotten around to it?
It can be something specific to your work if you'd like, but it's preferably:
- the kind of tool or task that we don't really expect in the next MATLAB release (ie., not a frequent entry in a MATLAB wishlist)
- something that would be useful to you and (hopefully) others if it existed.
- something that could conceivably be made by people(s) in the user community
Think of it maybe as a file exchange wishlist.
Votes for good ideas . I guess you'll get more votes if it's an idea others want to see made as well.
Probably no single accepted answer, but it would be nice to see what people have thought about and maybe we can bring a few ideas to fruition (or find that someone's already done it)
For example:
- I've been wanting to write an object-oriented replacement for the NURBS toolbox which is a great toolbox but is very unwieldy to use.
Some of Matlab's toolbox functions are affected by magic strings or magic numbers, which are strings or numbers with a deeper meaning besides the normal value. Both are considered as bad programming patters, because they provoke confusions, when the magic keys appear with the normal meaning by accident. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern
Example 1:
clear('myVariable')
clear('variables')
While the 1st clears the variable myVariable, the later clears all variables. Here 'variables' has a meta-meaning. The problem appears, when 'variables' is an existing variable:
a = 1;
variables = 2;
clear('variables')
disp(a) % >> 1
Only variables is cleared, which cannot be understood directly when its definition is 1000 lines before.
Example 2:
uicontrol('String', 'default')
This creates a button with the empty string '' instead of the expected 'default', because this is the magic string to invoke the default value get(0, 'DefaultUIControlString'). The same concerns properties of other graphic objects also, e.g. the 'name' property of figure or the string of uimenu. There is a workaround which allows the user to display 'default': Simply use '\default'. Unfortunately this is doubled magic, because in consequence it is impossible to display the string '\default'. Obviously a bad idea.
Example 3:
Graphic handles are doubles (although gobject of the new R2013a seems, like this is subject to changes? [EDITED: Yes, it changed with HG2 in R2014a]). But then a handle can be confused with data:
a = axes; % e.g. 0.0048828125
plot(a, 2, '+')
But you cannot draw the point [0.0048828125, 2] by this way, because the 1st input is considered as handle of the parent. Here all possible values of handles are magic. Collisions are very unlikely, but there is no way to avoid them reliably - as long as handles have the type double.
Question:
Which functions are concerned by magic values? What are the pitfalls and workarounds?
How do I can delete my account?
I would like to receive your feedback:
- would you find useful to have spellcheck built into the MATLAB Editor?
(Consider also an associated toggle, positioned somewhere in the Editor, that would enable/disable the spellcheck for selective use)
Lately, I am writing many quick analyses for publish() and I find that first publishing to MS Word (to check the spelling) and then re-publishing to .html, after manual corrections, disrupts the working.
IMHO, the idea to include spellcheck into the editor would be consistent with the renewed visibility of the PUBLISH tab.
I am wondering what others use for those little short-cuts or niceties in MATLAB. I have in mind something you wrote or something somebody else wrote or an underused MW function.
Here are my two favorites.
This is a simple script I use. Here is the entire contents of CLC.m (yes, it is capitalized):
clear all,close all,clc
Very simple, but I use it all the time. Here is another one I use so often that I forget not every machine has it (though every machine should, IMO):
Here is an underused MW function that I occasionally employ when working on someone else's machine. The usual response is, "Wait, what did you just do?"
home
What are some of yours?
This topic is for features you would like to see for the MATLAB Answers facility itself, and also for bug reports about the MATLAB Answers facility.
This topic is the follow on to the earlier Wish-list for MATLAB Answer sections. That topic grew large enough to become unwieldy; and Mathworks has made enough changes to make a number of the past points no longer of relevance. There was also a more limited purpose <http://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/216662-new-design-of-the-forum-grey-on-white-wish-list-3-bug-reports
I suggest one wish (or bug report) per answer, so that people can vote their wishes.
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