nbuttondlg

NBUTTONDLG(Question, ButtonLabels) creates a modal dialog box that sizes to accomodate a generic number of buttons. The number of buttons is determined by the number of elements in ButtonLabels, provided as an array of string-likes understood by string. The name of the button that is pressed is returned as a string. If the dialog window is closed without a valid selection the return value is empty.

NBUTTONDLG should theoretically support an infinite number of buttons. The default parameters are optimized for 4 buttons.

NBUTTONDLG uses UIWAIT to suspend execution until the user responds.

Installation

No installation necessary. Clone the repository or download the files and execute directly in MATLAB.

Usage

Example:

user_choice = nbuttondlg('What is your favorite color?', ...
                        {'Red', 'Green', 'Blue', 'Yellow'} ...
             );
if ~isempty(user_choice)
    fprintf('Your favorite color is %s!\n', user_choice);
else
    fprintf('You have no favorite color :(\n')
end

Parameter/Value Pairs

The Question and ButtonLabel inputs can be followed by parameter/value pairs to specify additional properties of the dialog box. For example, NBUTTONDLG(Question, ButtonLabels, 'DialogTitle', 'This is a Title!') will create a dialog box with the specified Question and ButtonLabels and replace the default figure title with 'This is a Title!'

Property Name	Data Type	Description	Default
BorderSize	Integer	Spacing, in pixels, between dialog box edges and button edges	20
ButtonWidth	Integer	Width, in pixels, of all buttons	80
ButtonHeight	Integer	Height, in pixels, of all buttons	40
ButtonSpacing	Integer	Spacing, in pixels, between all buttons	20
PromptTextHeight	Integer	Height, in pixels, of the question text box	20
DialogTitle	String-like	Dialog box figure title	'Please Select an Option'
DefaultButton	Integer or String-like	Default highlighted button.1	1
CancelButton	Boolean	Include a cancel button.2	false

1. An attempt will be made to match a string-like input to a value in ButtonLabels. If no match is found, or the integer value is greater than the number of buttons, the default value will be used.
2. If true, a 'Cancel' button label is added to ButtonLabels. If Cancel is selected, NBUTTONDLG behaves as if it were closed without selection.