Is there a way to set a EditField as ready to accept input in app designer?

I am using App Designer to make an EditBox with user text input. I would like to user to be able to select the app and begin typing without the need to select the EditBox. Is there a way to have the code select the EditBox to enable it to be ready for user input?

Answer 1

[Ameer Hamza]

It appears that this functionality has still not been added to App Designer. Anyway here is a bodge that can bring an edit field to focus. The idea is to send automatic TAB key presses to the app window. Since you can manually bring an edit field to focus by pressing TAB key several times, you can automate this as follow

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
rob = Robot;
rob.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_TAB)
rob.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_TAB)
rob.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_TAB)
rob.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_TAB)

these line of code will simulate 2 TAB key presses. Since it is a bodge, at the time of coding, you will have to use hit and trial approach to determine how many tab presses are needed to reach a particular edit field. I have attached a sample app. When the app start, it force editfield1 to get focus. After that, whenever button1 is pressed, editfield1 will be focused and button2 will bring editfield2 to focus. You can look at the Code View to get a further idea.

[David Rea]

Thank you for the help. I hope they implement this feature in the native app designer features, but until then I will use the solution you provided.

[Ameer Hamza]

You are welcome.

[David Rea]

I am new to the java aspect of Matlab. Do you know if there is a way to check by code if the editbox is ready for input? The tab method works really well for a button press, but if I want to use a timer to put the editbox ready for input, the code does't know which object will be activated by tab because it doesn't know where in the tab sequence the app currently is.

[Ameer Hamza]

I also don't know much about java, and how to use it to check if edit box is active. I believe that there must be some elegant way to accomplish this. But since we are talking about bodges, so here is another one. If you click on the gray area of your figure, it will reset the tab sequence and you will get a fixed reference point to reach each element in the figure using TAB presses. So here is what I have done

1) Determine the current position of the mouse pointer on the screen.

2) Move the mouse pointer (programmatically) to the lower left corner of the figure. I just choose lower left an example, an empty area will work.

3) Simulate a left mouse button press. This will reset the tab sequence.

4) Move the mouse back to location noted in step 1.

5) Since the tab sequence is reset, simulate a fixed number of TAB presses to reach a particular field.

See the attached file for the code. The timer will run every 3 seconds and focus the edit field 1, no matter which element in your figure is currently active.

[David Rea]

Thank you very much! I wish I could accept this answer again haha

[Ameer Hamza]

You are welcome. There is always an option to upvote ;)

[Thomas Pallierer]

Hello Ameer Hamza, is it possible to upload the app-file created with Matlab Version 2017b? I am not able to open your app, because it is done with a newer version of App designer. Currently I am using Matlab 2017b and I want to check your App-Code. thanks in advance :-)

[Ameer Hamza]

This file is compatible with 2017b.

[Thomas Pallierer]

Thank you very much :-) it works

Answer 2

[Adam Danz]

Update

Starting in MATLAB R2022a.

Use the new focus(c) function to set focus to a ui component c. This MATLAB release also provides additional resources to control the focus order of ui components in AppDesigner.

More info

• Community Highlight: focus in R2022a
• Community Highlight: tab order in R2022a
• Summary of alternatives in earlier releases