It is possible to modify the stacking order of an object's children by setting the Children property to a permutation of itself. However, the new value must contain the same handles as the old value. For example:
%Create a patch and a line plot with the line plot overlaying the patch
h=patch([0 1 0 1], [0 1 1 0], 'r');
x=.5*ones(10,1);
y=linspace(0,1, 10);
hold on
hp=plot(x,y);
%Returns handles to the patch and line objects
chi=get(gca, 'Children')
%Reverse the stacking order so that the patch overlays the line
set(gca, 'Children',flipud(chi))
A similar concept applies to the tabbing order of the UICONTROLS. For more information and an example of changing the tabbing order, see the Related Solution:
