{"id":5899,"date":"2015-04-01T00:01:18","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T04:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=5899"},"modified":"2016-11-11T05:44:24","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T10:44:24","slug":"blinking-text-in-matlab-experimental-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2015\/04\/01\/blinking-text-in-matlab-experimental-feature\/","title":{"rendered":"Blinking text in MATLAB (Experimental Feature!)"},"content":{"rendered":"I'm excited to be back for a special guest visit to the Pick of the Week blog, more than eleven years after I founded it with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/profile\/authors\/869436-doug-hull\">Doug<\/a>. I'm extra excited because I have the opportunity to introduce to you a feature I've been playing with that we are hoping to get into MATLAB really soon.\r\n<\/p>\r\nWe hear requests for adding features to MATLAB graphics all of the time. Readers of this blog are hopefully well aware now that we released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/products\/matlab\/matlab-graphics\/\">massive update to MATLAB graphics <\/a>last year in R2014b. This offered a lot of the enhancements you've been asking for, but missed the one that I hear about the most.\r\n<\/p>\r\nMATLAB has unfortunately lagged a bit behind HTML in providing the ability to build gorgeous grabbing user interfaces (like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.angelfire.com\/super\/badwebs\/\" target=\"_blank\">this one<\/a>). HTML has long offered the ability make webpages really come to life, with embedded music, animated GIFs, dynamic backgrounds, and best of all - blinking text. I'm slowly chipping away at these, trying to make the case to the MATLAB developers that we need to bring all of these features into MATLAB.\r\n<\/p>\r\nAs part of this effort, I've put a prototype of a function on the File Exchange that makes it easy to make any text on a UI blink:\r\n<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><strong><a title=\"blink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/fileexchange\/50282-blink\" target=\"_blank\">BLINK<\/strong> Make a graphics component blink\r\n<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"380\" height=\"259\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5901\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/blinky.gif\" alt=\"blinky\" \/><\/p>\r\n<strong>blink<\/strong> has everything you need:\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li>Start blinking<\/li>\r\n\t<li>Stop blinking<\/li>\r\n\t<li>Blink at any speed<\/li>\r\n\t<li>Blink multiple elements on one figure at the same time, all at different speeds<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nDespite the complete obviousness (to me) that this is the next great graphics feature for MATLAB, I haven't been able to convince too many developers that I am right.\u00a0Here's where I need your help.\u00a0If you agree, please post\u00a0a <a href=\"&lt;https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=5899 #respond comment&gt;\">comment <\/a>below explaining how important blinking text is to your use of MATLAB. Or, download blink. Lots of times. Every day. When I show that we've got 1,000 downloads a month, I'm sure people will start to listen.\r\n<\/p>\r\nIf for some unfathomable\u00a0reason you think I've got it wrong and that we should be working on something else for graphics and apps, I guess you could say what you think in a <a href=\"&lt;https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=5899 #respond comment&gt;\">comment<\/a> instead. Just be sure to check out the beautiful App Designer tech preview\u00a0first to get a sense of what we are already working on. (Note: The App Designer preview only works in MATLAB\u00a0R2014b.)\r\n\r\nHere's to your good health this April, and to many more years of beautiful MATLAB Apps!\r\n\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\nOne more thing - I would be remiss if I were to forget to wish you a very happy\u00a0April Fool's Day!\r\n\r\n<\/p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"overview-image\"><img decoding=\"async\"  class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/blinky.gif\" onError=\"this.style.display ='none';\" \/><\/div><p>I'm excited to be back for a special guest visit to the Pick of the Week blog, more than eleven years after I founded it with Doug. I'm extra excited because I have the opportunity to introduce to... <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2015\/04\/01\/blinking-text-in-matlab-experimental-feature\/\">read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,12,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5899"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8042,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899\/revisions\/8042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}