Learning To Program With Matlab: Building Gui Tools, Second Edition

The book serves as a compact introduction to computer programming using the MATLAB language. The integrated development environment and interpreted nature of the language makes it a good choice for a first language. The suite of graphics commands, mathematical functions, and domain-specific toolboxes, also make MATLAB a popular choice for research and commercial use. The key feature of this book is the early and scaffolded introduction to making programs with a modern graphical user interface (GUI). Students can create programs that are like all the computer programs they are accustomed to interacting with: operated by pressing buttons, selecting options from pull-down menus, filling in values in boxes, adjusting values by moving sliders, and visualizing results with meaningful and responsive graphics. The reader is given a step-by-step guide to the process of turning a MATLAB program into a GUI Tool, which can then be iteratively enhanced and refined. This involves elements both of program design and user-interface design. The approach is geared toward creating computational models whose behavior can be explored through a graphical user interface朦 GUI Tool. The computational models are based on the relevant mathematics and science. One great value of a GUI tool is to let the user easily explore the model瀏 behavior, while in a sense hiding舊 the details of the computation.

By smoothly and easily examining many 燸hat-if?scenarios, the user gains the insight that is so often the goal of building the model. For researchers and professionals, the ability to quickly make and package GUI Tools that capture the behavior of a model in a particular problem domain can be very helpful. Beyond exploring the model for oneself, which is invaluable, the GUI Tool can be operated by those who are less familiar with the mathematical and computational details. MATLAB GUI Tools benefit from the wide array of mathematical and graphical libraries available. The book contains descriptions and examples of some of those functions that we have found most useful, particularly in engineering and science applications.

The first edition employed the MATLAB graphical user interface design environment (GUIDE) to develop the GUI tools. MathWorks has gradually built up a new environment for GUI creation called appdesigner. By the 2021a release, all the MATLAB graphics capabilities had been included in the new appdesigner framework and the GUIDE will not be supported in the future. The new edition is based on this new and improved capability. Another change in MATLAB has been the by-now full development of the string class for handing alphanumeric data. This more flexible class supersedes the char array, though it still continues. This change makes in easier, particularly for beginners, to display text and numerical data together. A rich set of new string-processing functions will also be of benefit. Other language advancements that are covered in the new edition include the table data class, new graphical interface elements, so-called 櫃ot-notation?for accessing object properties, and optional function arguments using a 瀆roperty=value?syntax that enhances readability. The goal of the text is to describe what users will find most useful, and point to other features, rather than being encyclopedic in scope.