Defining a MATLAB Monitor in a Multi-Monitor Configuration

Question

I often move from a company website to another. Any day, I can only have my laptop or as many as four monitors. With multiple monitors, I don’t know which monitor I will use for the MATLAB main GUI (the main GUI starts when you double-click matlab.exe). It depends on the resolutions of the available monitors.

I use scripts that use software-generated graphical interfaces (not GUIDE), and it seems that MATLAB always pops up on the first monitor. I did a bit of work and found to find graphical interfaces for selecting a monitor using the commands p = get(gcf, 'Position') , set(0, 'DefaultFigurePosition', p) and movegui , but this will only work if I know in advance which monitor I want to use.

Is there any way to find out on which monitor the main GUI of MATLAB is located, and other small graphical interfaces appear on the same monitor?

Answer 1

We can use some Java tricks to get the current monitor; see code with comments below:

 function mon = q37705169 %% Get monitor list: monitors = get(groot,'MonitorPositions'); % also get(0,'MonitorPositions'); %% Get the position of the main MATLAB screen: pt = com.mathworks.mlservices.MLEditorServices.getEditorApplication.getActiveEditor.getComponent.getRootPane.getLocationOnScreen; matlabScreenPos = [pt.x pt.y]+1; % "+1" is to shift origin for "pixel" units. %% Find the screen in which matlabScreenPos falls: mon = 0; nMons = size(monitors,1); if nMons == 1 mon = 1; else for ind1 = 1:nMons mon = mon + ind1*(... matlabScreenPos(1) >= monitors(ind1,1) && matlabScreenPos(1) < sum(monitors(ind1,[1 3])) && ... matlabScreenPos(2) >= monitors(ind1,2) && matlabScreenPos(2) < sum(monitors(ind1,[2 4])) ); end end 

A few notes:

• Documentation of root properties .
• The output value of "0" means that something is wrong.
• Perhaps there is an easier way to get "RootPane"; I used a method with which I have good experience.
• Only one of the monitors will recognize this if your MATLAB window spans multiple monitors. If this functionality is needed, you can use com.mathworks.mlservices.MLEditorServices.getEditorApplication.getActiveEditor.getComponent.getRootPane.getWidth etc. to find other corners of the MATLAB window and run the same tests with them.
• I did not bother to break out of the loop after the first valid monitor was found, as it is assumed that: 1) Only one monitor is valid. 2) The total number of monitors that the cycle should process is small.
• For the brave, you can test using polygons (i.e., inpolygon ).