Comments on: The MATLAB R2012b Desktop – Part 2: Customizing the R2012b MATLAB Desktop https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/?s_tid=feedtopost Loren Shure is interested in the design of the MATLAB language. She is an application engineer and writes here about MATLAB programming and related topics. Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:08:45 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 By: Johan https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33401 Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:08:45 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33401 Well, seeing all the upset feelings about the new interface I must be in a minority since I think change is good. I’ve been using matlab for 20+ years since the very first MS-DOS incarnations both in academia and in “the real life”. Of course I have my own way of working which isn’t really affected by the UI.

There are other things I would like to see change (for example expanding the capability of the built-in editor, and some of the error messages). But I can’t just get the same emotional response that seems so common here. In my area (communication & signal processing) there hasn’t bee any real advances in matlab core functionality in almost 10 years that really affected us in major way.

However there is one change in 2012b that I think MathWorks really needs to retract and that is the new Help system. Removing the left side tree structure also removes the overview which cannot be replaced by either the breadcrumbs or the dynamic tree-view. Call it an experiment that didn’t work. No harm in that – you tried it -It didn’t work, so just go back to the old way. The Help system is really the only UI part of Matlab I use – so maybe that is way I’m not so bothered by the “other” stuff. Matlab needs to evolve, evolution sometimes take a detour until it finds the right way.

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By: Sven https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33350 Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:45:24 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33350 @David
Thanks for the quick reply. For suggestion (1), the main reason I work with a docked editor is that I often have 2 (or more) MATLAB windows open… in the age of multi-core pcs, it’s quite useful when I’m writing code that runs for ~10mins at a time to switch between a couple of instances so that I can work on the next problem while the last is (hopefully) running. This means that on Windows 7 the “MATLAB” items under the MATLAB button on the taskbar can get unmanageable pretty quickly. It’s easier for me to keep most things docked so that I only see one application per MATLAB instance (ie, it would be difficult to keep track of which editor belongs to which instance if they were undocked).

For point (2) – that’s what I’ve ended up doing in combination with learning the shortcut to some of the less-used debugging buttons (like step-in/step-out).

I really think that with the “Current Folder Bar” it was *almost* ideal for an experienced matlab user who wants to be tidy with real-estate. If we could just use that bar like the shortcuts bar, then we could have a full row of real estate (the address bar itself doesn’t need to cover the whole screen) in addition to the shortcut bar, which would allow a user to place distinct “themes” of buttons (like publishing, debugging, editing) in visually separate locations.

I’ll check out the pre-release, it sounds like it goes in this direction.

Cheers,
Sven.

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By: David Garrison https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33349 Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:26:47 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33349 @Sven,

Regarding debugging issues: There are two possible solutions to the problem you have described.

1) Undock the editor. That way the editor tabs are always visible regardless of what’s happening in other parts of the desktop.
2) Put the debugging controls into your Quick Access Toolbar. That way they are always available regardless of which desktop client window has focus.

Regarding separators in the quick access toolbar and the table of contents in the Help browser: These are things that we have heard about. Stay tuned. I would strongly encourage you to download the R2013a pre-release to see what we’ve done to address these concerns.

Regarding the keyboard shortcuts: You can override the default shortcuts from the Keyboard -> Shortcuts panel in the Preferences. Currently upper and lower case do not have keyboard shortcuts.

Thanks for your comment about automatic variable renaming.

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By: Sven https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33346 Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:55:46 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33346 Oh, and I forgot the ask the question that I originally came here for!

In 2012a, the shortcut CTRL+U changed highlighted text to upper case, and CTRL+SHIFT+U changed to lower case. In 2012b these shortcuts instead dock/undock entities. In 2012a if I didn’t know the shortcut for something I could look for it in menus. In 2012b I have no menus thus no way to know if upper/lower case has been mapped to a new shortcut key or been removed completely.

Please enlighten?

By the way, just to make sure I’m not only complaining, let me say that the update (in 2011b or whenever it came) to allow the changing-throughout-the-scope of one variable name to another (via SHIFT+ENTER) is hands down the most useful and time-saving desktop environment feature that I can think of. No generic text editor could replicate it (because it couldn’t know the scope of variables). Please make more changes like that ;) Ability to do the same with fields of structures might be a bit tricky to implement, but it would be just as highly valuable.

Thanks,
Sven.

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By: Sven https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33345 Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:44:05 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33345 My thoughts on 2012b:

RIBBON:
Initial reaction is that it’s horrible for debugging. Here’s a use case:
– You’ve got a function/script that opens a figure and you want to debug it.
– You run the script with a breakpoint before the figure gets made.
– You step through the lines that make the figure using the visually prominent “Step” button
– The figure by default is undocked so it goes behind the desktop when you hit “Step”. No problem – change windows and dock the figure.
– You look up at the ribbon… “Step” has disappeared and you’re back at the “Home” tab. Well that’s weird – never mind I’ll just find the “Editor” tab and activate it so I can step… Oh, there’s no “Editor” tab…
– Ok, I’ll click in the Editor then go to the “Step” button
– Now I want to check out the changes it made to my plots… click on the figure
– Now I want to step through a few more lines… oh, the Editor tab is hidden again.

In this use case, all I want to do is step through lines and play with figures. 2012b is inferior to 2012a in this respect. Strangely, if you click on a figure while you’re *not* debugging, the “Figure” tab is activated. If you’re debugging, the “Home” tab is activated. This feels inconsistent.

Next, the buttons are nice and friendly… alas this means they take up a larger footprint. In 2012a you could arrange “single-line” button strips to cover the desired real estate. In 2012b you’ve got to decide to chew up a big chunk of the screen with buttons, or reduce everything to the shortcut bar (which squashes everything you put there without any visual separation).

I think I could get by nicely with the “current folder” toolbar and “quick access” bar if I could customise them both… alas again, the current folder (which takes the whole screen width unless it’s put under the current folder box) is limited to buttons to do with folder browsing. Interestingly, the “current folder” can be customised to have separators. Why oh why can we put separators on a bar with 4 buttons, but we can’t put separators on the bar with potentially many many buttons?

I have to admit that the major benefit to upgrading so far is that after I hid the ribbon completely, I was forced to learn the shortcuts keys to all the debugging events like step/step in/step out/evaluate cell and advance/stop execution/etc because I couldn’t afford the real-estate on the shortcut bar to have them all available. This is an increase in productivity but I suspect not the type that TMW was aiming for :)

HELP SYSTEM:
I agree with @zardoz, @wei in the part1 blog entry: the removal of the tree-structure is a downgrade.
I know that there’s a little tree-like button next to the search bar that kind of does a similar thing, but it’s quite frustrating to use:

1. It seems to get regenerated on-demand each time you click it so there’s a little lag between clicking it (or expanding any branch) and seeing results. In 2012a the tree was pre-populated and snappy.

2. Any time you click one of the branches or leaves on the tree, the tree itself disappears and takes you to the clicked page. If you again click on the little tree it at least opens to the branch you were on (yay!) but this prevents a typical use case:
– You are browsing
– You see a set of topics that are interesting (such as the 5 or 6 under MATLAB>Mathematics>Linear Algebra)
– You want to click on one, check out it’s contents, then click on the next one
– In 2012a with the tree to the left of the pages you could do this and very quickly explore documents with “context” of where you were. In 2012b it would take longer and more clicks, with each click jolting you from looking at a tree menu to looking at a docs page (now with the context in a different spot on the page to where you selected it).

3. Any sense of context is lost as soon as you scroll down. The breadcrumb context that you have (which is in a different format to the context tree you clicked on) is at the top of the page and the top of the page only. Having tabs is great and I’m the type of user who has 20 browser tabs open in chrome and 10 help tabs open in MATLAB. The difference is that at a glance I know the “context” from the address in my chrome address bar even if I’m at the bottom of a page. I get no such cue in MATLAB help tabs.

4. Similar to point 3, the fact that the little tree button is at the top of the page only ensures that there’s another obstacle if you want to browse the help docs – when you want to browse to another branch in the tree, you need to scroll to the top of whatever page you were looking at.

5. The tree, such as it is, seems to be generated separately for each toolbox. In 2012a I had 16 toolbox helps neatly at the root of a tree. Now I’ve got 16 separate trees.

6. The tree, such as it is, seems buggy and inconsistent.
– Enter the Data Acquisition Toolbox
– Click the tree icon. You see a set of blue links with equal prominence.
– Click the “Analog Input and Output” tree hyperlink. You get shown a page with the “Analog Input and Output” section expanded.
– Click the tree again, go instead to “Digital Input and Output”. Nothing changes, you’re still at the screen with the “Analog Input and Output” section expanded.
– Click the tree again and click on “Counter and Timer Input and Output”. Even though it’s on the same “level” as “Digital/Analog Input and Output”, you get taken to a different type of page entirely. There was no visual indication in the tree of what to expect, and whenever you click, the context that you had at your disposal disappears. It’s disorienting.
– Click the tree again and go again to “Digital Input and Output”. You’re now looking at a different result (the Digital section is expanded instead of the Analog section) from previously when you clicked the exact same button.

Yes, I’m picky about the help (I’ve made suggestions before: https://blogs.mathworks.com/community/2009/10/05/slimming-down-the-help-browser/) – but it’s a well-known feature of MATLAB over other (free-er) packages.

Ok, that’s enough for now, but I will reiterate the sentiment of others: it’s a bit jarring that the choice of features to overhaul seems incongruent with the actual features people want overhauled (nod to those wanting a graphics package that lets you smoothly pan/zoom/rotate 3d figures)

Cheers,
Sven.

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By: Andy T. https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33294 Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:13:42 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33294 Great. You have improved the interface in a way that makes Matlab easier to use for any Office user anywhere. Perhaps even small children could benifit by being able to click on the big buttons.

You have forgotten who your user base is. Can you really mention Fourier transform and Simulink in the same sentence as ribbons and not understand that something has gone terribly wrong. Someone has blindly followed the Microsoft ribbon paradigm without realizing that ribbons are already dead and the rest of the world has moved on.

I am angry, deeply disappointed and ashamed for the direction that you have taken this product. You have cost me days of just trying to find out where all the features are buried and so have most of the rest of your users. Where is the ‘revert to menus’ option. I still can’t find it.

Solution: Next release display a dialog with two choices: beginner/student in grade 4 and another option expert. Why frustrate and alienate your entire user base… because Microsoft said and you want to make it ‘easier’ for all your users? For shame.

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By: Tom https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33216 Wed, 17 Oct 2012 20:14:59 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33216 @David
So instead of showcasing one of the most helpful features no one knows about you hid it in a context aware right-click menu instead? That seems really counter intuitive to what you guys are trying to do. Especially when there is so much empty space left on the editor tab.

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By: Harald https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33190 Thu, 04 Oct 2012 08:38:59 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33190 One particular customization option that I am still missing is the ability to add custom plots to the plot tab / plot catalog. Are there any plans to support this functionality in the future? The way things are currently designed, both the plots and the apps tabs are pretty useless for my daily work…

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By: David Garrison https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33189 Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:51:45 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33189 @Soma
Those commands are still there just in a different place. In the Editor, select a numeric value, right click and select “Increment Value and Run Selection”. That will bering up a small dialog box with the plus/minus and divide/multiply controls that let you change the value and run the section in the file.

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By: Soma https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2012/09/19/the-matlab-r2012b-desktop-part-2-customizing-the-r2012b-matlab-desktop/#comment-33188 Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:20:51 +0000 https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/?p=528#comment-33188 Great intro to the 2012b Desktop. Where can I find tools related to ‘Rapid Code Iteration’ that was present in a tool strip just above the editor window in several previous versions of Matlab including 2012a?

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