getmousepos

Syntax

[x, y] = getmousepos()

getmousepos('print', status)

getmousepos('print', status, 'parent', handle)

Inputs

status: If the value is 'on', the mouse position will be printed in the command window, whenever there is a right mouse click in a figure that has only GUI elements and no axes. This property is useful when building a gui as both the normalized and pixel positions are printed. If the value is 'off', mouse position will not be printed on right click.; Type: off_on
handle: Optional input which specifies the handle of a ui element that will be used as a parent (reference) when calculating the normalized position printed. If no parent property is given, the current <cmdname>gcf</cmdname> handle will be used as reference. If the mouse position is not contained in the parent handle, the normalized position will be [NaN NaN] in the message printed.; Type: double

Outputs

x, y: The position of the mouse.; If the mouse is over a 2D plot, x and y are in the plot's coordinates system, which is defined by the x and y axes.; If the mouse is not over a 2D plot, then x and y are in the figure's coordinate system where the axes exists, the (0,0) point is in the upper-left corner of the figure window.

Examples

In the following example, getmousepos is used along with the 'mouseclickcallback' property to obtain the mouse position everytime you click on the plot:

close all;
          plot(rand(100,1));
          set(gca, 'mouseclickcallback',@get_mouse_pos);
          
          function get_mouse_pos(handle, callbackdata)
          [x,y] = getmousepos() 
          callbackdata
          end

The next example demonstrates the two coordinate systems. The mouse coordinates are printed in the console as the mouse moves over the figure.

close all;
          figure();
          subplot(1,2,2);
          plot(rand(10,1));
          
          ellipse(gcf,'pos',[0, 0, 20, 20], 'edgecolor', 'r','linewidth',2);
          
          for i=1:100 
          [x,y] = getmousepos()
          pause(1);
          end

getmousepos and the 'mouseclickcallback' property are combined in the following example to create new elements in the figure:

clear all, close all;
          axes('position',[0,0,0,0]);
          set(gca,'mouseclickcallback',@mouseclicked);
          
          function mouseclicked(h,callbackdata)
          [x,y]=getmousepos();
          ellipse(gcf,'pos',[x-10, y-10, 20, 20]) 
          end

getmousepos with printing in a figure used for GUI elements only


          getmousepos('print', 'on')
          f = gcf();
          % Right click in the figure once it is created. The following message will be printed
          Mouse position: normalized [0.45 0.44], pixels [307 143], parent [1.000000]
          getmousepos('print', 'off')

getmousepos with printing in a figure used for GUI elements only, with a parent reference


          getmousepos('print', 'on')
          f = gcf();
          % Right click in the figure once it is created. The following message will be printed
          Mouse position: normalized [0.45 0.44], pixels [307 143], parent [1.000000]
          % Use the normalized mouse position to create a frame inside gcf
          frame1 = uipanel(gcf(), 'title', 'Frame1', 'units', 'normalized', 'position', [0.45 0.44 0.5 0.4]);
          getmousepos('print', 'on', 'parent', frame1)
          % Right click in the parent frame to get the position where a button needs to be created
          Mouse position: normalized [0.12 0.38], pixels [348 193], parent [17.819334]
          % Use the normalized mouse position to create a button inside parent object
          button = uicontrol(frame1, 'style', 'pushbutton', 'string', 'Next', 'units', 'normalized', 'position', [0.12 0.38 0.25 0.18]);
          getmousepos('print', 'off')

Comments

If the mouse is not inside the figure area when getmousepos is called, the outputs will be NaN.