Auto-Filter Listbox

Create listbox uicontrol where strings can be filtered with a regular expression.

Usage:

H = listbox_autofilter()

H = listbox_autofilter('PropertyName', Value, ...)

H = listbox_autofilter(PARENT)

H = listbox_autofilter(PARENT, 'PropertyName', Value, ...)

Inputs:

Any combination of arguments that is valid for the construction of a

listbox uicontrol object. See 'uicontrol' and 'Uicontrol Properties'

documentation for more details.

Outputs:

H <1x1 uicontrol handle>

- Handle to listbox uicontrol object

Description:

listbox_autofilter effectively serves as a wrapper for a standard

listbox uicontrol object. See the 'uicontrol' documentation for more

information on constructing, setting/getting properties, and

interacting with a listbox uicontrol object.

Note, the 'Style' property will automatically be set to 'listbox' and

will override any other 'Style' property that may have been specified.

The 'Style' property should not be modified. Also, location and size

properties should not be modified because they are being automatically

handled through the use of the GUI Layout Toolbox.

The additional functionality provided by listbox_autofilter is the

pairing of the listbox uicontrol with an editable textbox that will

filter the listbox strings that are displayed through (case insensitive)

regular expression search.

Listbox selections will always provide an index relative to the full

set of strings, regardless of whether or not only a filtered subset of

the strings is being displayed. This is done to make it easier to use

the listbox selection to index into other variables that correspond to

the items in the listbox. See examples below for more details.

All listbox uicontrol callbacks are fully supported. The only potential

issue (for HG2) is that all callback event data will be 'struct' class.

So, the callbacks that are set shouldn't depend on receiving a specific

class of event data.

Examples:

f = figure;

str1 = {'This','is','example','text','to','display','in','listbox'};

h = listbox_autofilter(f, 'String', str1);

% If 'x' is typed into the textbox, then the only strings that will be

% displayed are {'example','text','listbox'}. Retrieving the index through

get(h, 'Value')

% will either return 3, 4, or 8 depending on the selection made, because

% those are the "absolute" indices of those strings in the full set of strings.

% Most listbox uicontrol properties can be modified as normal.

str2 = {'Attention','this','is','a','test','TESTING 1','TESTING 2','TESTING 3'};

set(h, 'String', str2);

% No matter how the listbox strings are filtered, the same 'str1' string

% will be displayed when its corresponding 'str2' string is selected.

set(h, 'Callback', @(src,evnt) disp(str1{get(src,'Value')}));

% Cleanup is automatically handled when listbox uicontrol object is deleted.

delete(h);

Requires:

GUI Layout Toolbox

HG1 version (R2014a and earlier): https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/27758-gui-layout-toolbox

HG2 version (R2014b and later): https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/47982-gui-layout-toolbox

References:

http://undocumentedmatlab.com/articles/auto-completion-widget