Comments on: Advanced Masking Concepts

By: Aloïs Z.

Aloïs Z. — Thu, 19 May 2011 07:39:57 +0000

Hello,

I was wondering if it was possible to use a mask to prevent people from modifying your block (i.e. disable the “Look under Mask Function”). Any other way of doing it without using Masks is fine too.

Regards,
Aloïs

By: Guy Rouleau

Guy Rouleau — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:16:20 +0000

@Jerker Wågberg, I do not have all the details of your implementation, but this is surprising. I recommend contacting technical support with an example model so this can be investigated.

By: Jerker Wågberg

Jerker Wågberg — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:57:52 +0000

More than a year since last comment in this thread. Got to keep i alive:)

I want to mask an ordinary Inport using

set_param(PORT, 'Mask', 'on')

, add some custom parameters and put it in a library.

Unfortunately, the port numbering doesn’t remain as specified when a model using these masked library ports is save, closed and then reloaded. Instead, the port numbering follows the sorted order of the ports names!

Since it is a bit inconvenient, to say the least, to have to name the ports in port number order, I am wondering if there is a way around this behaviour.

My current workaround is to disable the masked port’s link to the library in it’s CopyFcn callback, but that, of course, makes it harder to update old models when I change the library block.

(Using 2010b)

By: Seth

Seth — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:36:22 +0000

@Adriaan – Thanks for answering your own question! The OpenFcn is available for blocks, and gets called when you double click. This makes it possible to launch any interface you want from your blocks.

By: Adriaan

Adriaan — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:43:16 +0000

Me again… found the answer to my previous question, thank you!

If the mask editor doesn’t provide the flexibility you need, make a GUI using M-code or GUIDE and set the OpenFcn for the block to launch your GUI

by Seth from http://blogs.mathworks.com/seth/2008/08/13/dynamic-mask-dialogs/

By: Adriaan

Adriaan — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:28:57 +0000

Hello,

I am just wondering, is it possible to override the mask ‘function’ to execute my own Matlab GUI to set the parameters. I find the mask editor very limited – I want to create a GUI with radiobuttons, groupboxes, etc.

Regards,

Adriaan

By: Radu

Radu — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:27:00 +0000

Is it possible to create panes in a mask? For example the “Product” block from the “Commonly used Blocks” has to panes “Main” and “Signal Attributes”. I can not find documentation on this topic.
Thank you in advanced!

By: Seth

Seth — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:39:19 +0000

@Ryan – Thanks for the clear use case! This is very helpful in explaining your request to our development team, which is exactly what I have done with it. I can’t suggest a coloring based workaround for this. I have seen people embed information in the signal label, for example: .

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:28:13 +0000

@Seth

I do share a similar point of view on the use of goto and from blocks.

On the signal colouring, Highlight to Source/Destination is good to analyze one signal at a time. I’m trying to think of a way to classify signals based on a similar property.

A simple example would be if I had 3 Sensors. Sensor 1 and 2 operate on 5Volts and Sensor 3 operates on 3.3 Volts .The idea is to have the signals Sensor1, Sensor2 say coloured in red and Sensor3 perhaps in green.

I was actually expecting to see a Background (Foreground…can’t really have both for a signal :) ) colour option when I right clicked on the signal. Too bad there wasn’t one !

I tried opening the model as a text file to see if there were properties I could manipulate. I could do this if I had just an unconnected signal – not really useful.
But I think the way Simulink is designed it inherits the subsystem colour the signal originates from. Wonder if there’s a work around for this

By: Seth

Seth — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:55:59 +0000

@Ryan – thanks for adding to the discussion. I am not one of those people who universally decry the use of GoTo and From blocks. I think they serve a very important purpose when cleaning up the look of a diagram. Instances where GoTo and From cause problems are usually when there is no consistency in how they are applied. My personal preference is to see the application of modeling standards to the use of GoTo/From. For example, if all GoTo and From use will be local to a system, and never global, I think this can go a long way to cleaning up the diagram. I also like your idea of using colors to match up the pairs of blocks, or to group them in some way.

Regarding your request to provide signal specific coloring, have you ever tried right click -> Highlight to Source/Destination? I find this very helpful when debugging the model. In a very large model you must be patient using this feature as the time to recolor the model is proportional to the number of blocks and lines in it. When you are done tracing, right click -> Remove Highlighting.