I would like to add a 'display-all' hyperlink functionality to a class.

I've created a series of classes which serve as a convienient front end for some standard data sources which are ubiquitous in our organization.

I've been storing the data in a structure [in it's native form] and I've created alot of dependent properties to access the data convieniently. In addition, many of these dependent properties do alot of indexing in and [sometimes time consuming] calculations to identify good/bad/ugly regions and other things.... stuff which I want to only see sometimes.

I've tried hiding some properties, but it's easy to forget what they are and it's harder to hand off data to someone who maybe isn't as intimate with the source.

Currently, I've defined some custom display routines so not all of the data is displayed when something is queried in the command line. I can over-ride the custom display and use MATLAB's builtin display routines when I need to.

What would be very helpful is to add a hyperlink (like the display for graphic handle objects below) to quickly display various subsets (or groups of properites) of my data.

I haven't figured out how to get a hyperlink reference to a specific instance of my class... it appears to only have access to the base workspace.... Any thoughts?

K>> foo = figure

foo = 

  Figure (3) with properties:

      Number: 3
        Name: ''
       Color: [1×3 double]
    Position: [680 678 560 420]
       Units: 'pixels'

  Show all properties

  classdef foo < matlab.mixin.CustomDisplay  
  properties
    this = 1;
    that = 2;
    theother = 'harbinger to lots of other properties';  
  end
  
  methods (Access = protected) 
    function g = getPropertyGroups(obj)
      g = matlab.mixin.util.PropertyGroup({'this','that'},'important stuff:');
    end
    function f = getFooter(obj)
      f = sprintf('<a href = "??matlab: CAN-ONLY-ACCESS-BASE-SPACE-FROM-HERE??" >display all</a>');
    end
  end
  
end

Answer 1

[Yair Altman]

It is true that desktop hyperlinks only work at the base workspace level, but you can still access specific object instances if you store them somewhere that is accessible from the base workspace. For example, if your object instance include a unique ID:

uniqueId = char(java.util.UUID.randomUUID);  % e.g. '221a5ecd-437e-4fa2-b4dd-de1bff77c9fd'

Then you can create a public static method that searches for and displays this object using its ID. For example, you can store all the active object references (list of uniqueIds vs. handles) in some global variable, and then the hyperlink will run a Matlab function that searches for the specific uniqueId, fetches the corresponding instance reference, and then displays its internals as you wish.

Answer 2

[Steve]

Hmmmm..... I'll try that. Thanks for the randomUUID reference, that will be key to making something work.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 3

[moali]

Hey Steve, I was trying to do the same thing. I took your example of foo = figure, and went over the hyperlink 'all properties'. In the status bar, it showed matlabs code. Using that, plus this help topic:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/11108-retrieve-an-object-s-name

I came up with the following code:

function footer = getFooter(sec)
    if isscalar(sec)
        varName = inputname(1);
        link=sprintf(['matlab:if isvalid(%s), ', ...
            'MyCustomDisplayFunction(%s), ', ...
            'else, ', ...
            'fprintf(''Unable to display properties. %s refers to a deleted object.\\n''), ', ...
            'end'], ...
            varName,varName,varName);
        linkStr = sprintf('<a href="%s">all properties</a>',link);
        footer = sprintf('Show %s\n',linkStr);
    else
        footer = '';
    end
end