Is GUIDE option avaibale in MATLAB 2020?

I want to know if one can still use the GUIDE option to build GUI like before in MATLAB 2020? Or it has been removed and one has to use the App designner by default?

Thanks in advance!

[Rik]

This might also be a useful link: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/483657-how-to-create-a-gui

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

GUIDE is still available in release R2020a, though as the note at the top of its documentation page and the entry in the Release Notes for R2019b both state it will be removed in a future release. See the GUIDE Migration Strategies page in the documentation for suggestions on how to prepare for this removal.

[John Doe]

Thanks!

[Javier Martín Sánchez]

Steven, is MatLab team really considering removing GUIDE in future releases? All users I know cannot work with App Designer because it is extremely slow. If MatLab (after several years) could not solve this issue, I do not believe it is a good idea to switch to App Designer! This will be a disaster for most of us.

[DGM]

The loss of GUIDE doesn't mean GUIDE apps will stop working. It just means that newer versions won't be able to edit them in the same way. You can always export to an m-file and just edit it that way. Considering that editing GUIDE apps with newer versions holds no guarantees of not breaking compatibility anyway, I don't really see the change as being significantly different than the status quo.

For what it's worth, I can't use AppDesigner either due to the fact that keyboard focus doesn't work. I literally can't type anything in it without resorting to elaborate rituals every time I move the cursor. I'm not worried about the loss of GUIDE at all because I stopped using it and just built the GUIs programmatically. After making that change, I eventually found GUIDE to be far more confusing and laborious to learn and use.

That's not to say my GUI tools are elegant, so maybe take that with a grain of salt.

[Rik]

I don't see the removal of GUIDE as a loss. You can still run applications created with them (as figures and functions are still available). GUIDE is horrible if you want clear and understandable code.

See this discussion for more alternatives than AppDesigner. I personally use neither GUIDE nor AppDesigner, because I want compatibility with more than just a few Matlab releases.

To add to my rant about GUIDE: did you notice the comments tell you that the second input to a callback will be defined in a future release? I need to look it up, but I believe it has been defined a decade ago by now.

In my not so humble opinion yaou should not use GUIDE for any project more complex than an axis and a button or two.

[Bruno Luong]

I hope GUI and GUIDE will not be removed any soon. We have a bunch of GUIs that has been developped over 10 years and I hope it will run 10 more years.

Performance wise AppDedsigner is still pretty much disapplointed and some features that I can do in GUI won't be (easily) transferable to AppDesigner.

If GUI is not get into a way of how MATLAB future developping (I can't see why othe otherwise) TMW just have to keep the GUI available in the background for users like me instead to remove it.

[Rik]

@Bruno Luong GUIs are not being remove, just GUIDE. If you have anything worth continuous development I would strongly suggest taking the time to clean up the mess GUIDE made and make a proper programmatic GUI.

[Stephen23]

I second Rik's recommendation to write GUI's yourself programmatically. It really is not that hard, and your GUIs will be simpler, more versatile, and more efficient than anything GUIDE creates.

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/483657-how-to-create-a-gui

[Bruno Luong]

Thanks Rik. What mess GUIDE makes? It is simply a tool to conveniently to place the graphical objects and hierarchy them.

Do you men the standard callback fun(hObject, Event, handles) and guidata that is horrible?

For sure the object oriented AppDesigner is cleaner, but not by much.

I assume I can edit my GUI using GUIDE of the last supported MATLAB version.

The other issue with AppDesigner is that the file format is not suitable for any versioning such as GIT and such. In GUIDE that restricts to the FIG file only, and it's also a headache to handle. Usually in our case we centralize any modification of file to one developper.

[Stephen23]

"What mess GUIDE makes?"

The code itself for a start: it generates around twice as much code as the equivalent written by hand. The code obfuscates the GUI functionality by forcing everything into the same coding patterns.

Perhaps this is true of every "automatic" code generation tool.

[Bruno Luong]

No problem to me, I edit the generated GUI code to call the callback functions implemented outside, so the GUIDE code is simply a frame for callback/close/init. I never put any unroll code inside the GUI m-file.

[Rik]

I you use it simply as a layout tool, doesn't it annoy you that it doesn't provide a 'snap to grid' functionality?

Getting the first approximation of the layout is the only usefull purpose I see for GUIDE, but it simply lacks the controls I want for a proper layout. And that seems to be the only thing you use it for, so I don't see why you would have any issues moving away from GUIDE.

You could even start a collaborative effort to create a GUIDE-replacement that will let you create the layout and then generates the code for the placement. GUILT might already be what you need, although that might limit compatibility, I have never tried it.

[Bruno Luong]

Yes I use GUIDE to design the layout, add new control, new button in toolbar and menu on the main window. GUIDE fills my need. It mght lack feature, but I don't feel what mess it creates as you guys do.

The headeach part is usuially to deal with figure resizing. I hope someday we have a better design tool to properly deal with resizing and different monitor DPI.