Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 20
Graphical User Interfaces
In the previous chapter the reader found a graphical user interface ('
pplane7.m
'),
which allows easy input of parameters as well as direct output of results, numeri-
cally or graphically. The technical term for these types of 'man-machine-interfaces'
is
Graphical User Interface
, and the abbreviation is
GUI
. Nowadays, computer
users are already used to GUIs, as there is hardly any software that does not utilize
its capacities, including the operating system.
Looking back to Fig. 19.6, the user may ask how difficult it may be to construct
such an interface. In this final chapter it is shown how a GUI can be implemented
using MATLAB
. It will be demonstrated that GUIs can be set up using core
®
MATLAB
, and that it is easier than the novice may have imagined beforehand,
although the functionality of the examples does not reach the one of the '
pplane7.m
'
file of the previous chapter.
®
20.1 The MATLAB
Guide
®
There is a special MATLAB
tool for the set-up of GUIs. It is called from the
®
MATLAB
command window by:
®
guide
What appears is a graphical user interface to construct GUIs. First the user is
asked whether she/he wants to open an existing GUI, or whether to create a new one
(Fig.
20.1
).
We proceed with an example, and therefore choose the 'Blank GUI' default. The
window that appears on the display next is reproduced here in Fig.
20.2
.
