Help displaying text to a figure.

If I do not want to plot an actual graph, and just display text of different colors as if it was written in a text editor or something similar how would I do that? So I wrote this program that deals random cards out. The program works great, but I don't know how to do the display. Here is the program though really all I am asking is for help with the figure.

function []=myShowHand(cards,PlayerName)

for k = 1:length(cards)
    if cards(k) == 1
        cards(k) = 13;
    elseif cards(k) == 14
        cards(k) = 26;
    elseif cards(k) == 27
        cards(k) = 39;
    elseif cards(k) == 40
        cards(k) = 52;
    else 
        cards(k) = cards(k) - 1;
    end % nested if
end % for loop

cards = sort(cards,'descend');

A = find(cards <= 13);
AA = cards(A); %clubs
B = find(cards >= 14);
BB = cards(B);
C = find(BB <=26);
CC = cards(C); %diamonds
D = find(cards >= 27);
DD = cards(D);
E = find(DD <=39);
EE = cards(E); %hearts
F = find(cards >= 40);
FF = cards(F); %spades

clubs = AA;

diamonds = CC;
hearts = EE;
spades = FF;

deck = '23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA';

clubs = deck(clubs);
diamonds = deck(diamonds);
hearts = deck(hearts);
spades = deck(spades);

figure
axis off
text(1,1,'\spadesuit')
text(1,2,'\heartsuit')
text(1,3,'\diamondsuit')
text(1,4,'\clubsuit')

end % function

[Peter]

So I want it to display this basically

*Player Name*

(Spade) J875
(Heart) KT64
(Diamond) QJ842
(Club) AKQJ952

Answer 1

[dpb]

text will work just fine, it works in a default axes object. Start with sotoo...

s={'(Spade)   J875';'(Heart)   KT64';'(Diamond) QJ842';'(Club)    AKQJ952'}
hF=figure; set(hF,'color',[1 1 1])
hA=axes; set(hA,'color',[1 1 1],'visible','off')
text(0.5,0.5,s)

where you dynamically build the s array to write by combining the suit names and card holding in cell array. I just copied your example for playing with. cellstr can be your friend here.

You can then play with the figure size, location, as well as the scale for the axes (default 0-1 above) and text has all the properties you need for modifying at will. See the doc for it for that...

[dpb]

What syntax is that?

Yes, I just put the text into a fixed cell array for simplicity since couldn't easily generate your results not having the full code.

What does deck return for form? It might be simpler using the results if you stored those as cell string array instead of using all the different variable names.

[Peter]

The program for the assignment has certain things that need to work in certain ways. I had to make everything general enough to work outside of the most simplest thing. For instance a 1 has to be an Ace but an Ace has to be higher than a King. Needs to be descending. I'm not awesome at coding but this seems to work for it. Also, I got it all to work but how can I change the color of the text for diamonds and hearts to red? I know how to change the color of all of 's' but I want clubs and spades text to remain black.

[Peter]

function []=myShowHand(cards,PlayerName)

for k = 1:length(cards)
    if cards(k) == 1
        cards(k) = 13;
    elseif cards(k) == 14
        cards(k) = 26;
    elseif cards(k) == 27
        cards(k) = 39;
    elseif cards(k) == 40
        cards(k) = 52;
    else 
        cards(k) = cards(k) - 1;
    end % nested if
end % for loop

cards = sort(cards,'descend');

A = find(cards <= 13);
AA = cards(A); %clubs
B = find(cards >= 14);
BB = cards(B);
C = find(BB <=26);
CC = cards(C); %diamonds
D = find(cards >= 27);
DD = cards(D);
E = find(DD <=39);
EE = cards(E); %hearts
F = find(cards >= 40);
FF = cards(F); %spades

clubs = AA;
diamonds = CC;
hearts = EE;
spades = FF;

deck = '23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA23456789TJQKA';

clubs = ['\clubsuit', deck(clubs)];
diamonds = ['\diamondsuit', deck(diamonds)];
hearts = ['\heartsuit' ,deck(hearts)];
spades = ['\spadesuit', deck(spades)];

s = {PlayerName; spades ;hearts ;diamonds ;clubs};
myFigure = figure;
set(myFigure,'color',[1 1 1])
axis off
text(0,.5,s,'FontSize',14)

end % function

This works to give me everything listed the way I want. Two problems. I want it centered up top of the figure, and diamonds and hearts to be red text. I keep playing with it but I just can't get it to do this.

Answer 2

[dpb]

See links from

doc text

for all the properties of the text object and examples of using them.

...want it centered...

'horizontalAlignment','center

...and diamonds and hearts to be red...

'color', 'r'

For the latter you'll have to split the text strings to write the black suits and red suits individually.

Or, you can get more fancier and use TeX and the \color and other directives.

See the section in documentation on Adding Text Annotations to Graphs in the Graphics chapter for lots of examples and the full documentation story.

You can just try the following for starters

text(0.5,0.5,'Clubs','horizontal','center','color','k')
text(0.5,0.45,'Hearts','horizontal','center','color','r')

or

txtstr(1)={'\color{black} Clubs '};
txtstr(2)={'\color{red} Hearts '}
text(0.5,0.5,txtstr,'interpreter','tex','horizonatalalign','center')

Obviously you'll want to build the strings for the hands dynamically.

[Peter]

Thanks for all for all of your help. I will give it a try.