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POWhat's the "right" way to organize GUI code?
 

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  1. POWhat's the "right" way to organize GUI code?
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    <p>I'm working on a fairly sophisticated GUI program to be deployed with MATLAB Compiler. (There are good reasons MATLAB is being used to build this GUI, that is not the point of this question. I realize GUI-building is not a strong suit for this language.)</p> <p>There are quite a few ways to share data between functions in a GUI, or even pass data between GUIs within an application:</p> <ul> <li><code>setappdata/getappdata/_____appdata</code> - associate arbitrary data to a handle</li> <li><code>guidata</code> - typically used with GUIDE; "store[s] or retrieve[s] GUI data" to a structure of handles</li> <li>Apply a <code>set/get</code> operation to the <code>UserData</code> property of a handle object</li> <li>Use nested functions within a main function; basically emulates "globally" scoping variables.</li> <li>Pass the data back and forth among subfunctions</li> </ul> <p>The structure for my code is not the prettiest. Right now I have the engine segregated from the front-end (good!) but the GUI code is pretty spaghetti-like. Here's a skeleton of an "activity", to borrow Android-speak:</p> <pre><code>function myGui fig = figure(...); % h is a struct that contains handles to all the ui objects to be instantiated. My convention is to have the first field be the uicontrol type I'm instantiating. See draw_gui nested function h = struct([]); draw_gui; set_callbacks; % Basically a bunch of set(h.(...), 'Callback', @(src, event) callback) calls would occur here %% DRAW FUNCTIONS function draw_gui h.Panel.Panel1 = uipanel(... 'Parent', fig, ... ...); h.Panel.Panel2 = uipanel(... 'Parent', fig, ... ...); draw_panel1; draw_panel2; function draw_panel1 h.Edit.Panel1.thing1 = uicontrol('Parent', h.Panel.Panel1, ...); end function draw_panel2 h.Edit.Panel2.thing1 = uicontrol('Parent', h.Panel.Panel2, ...); end end %% CALLBACK FUNCTIONS % Setting/getting application data is done by set/getappdata(fig, 'Foo'). end </code></pre> <p>I have previously-written code where nothing is nested, so I ended up passing <code>h</code> back and forth everywhere (since stuff needed to be redrawn, updated, etc) and <code>setappdata(fig)</code> to store actual data. In any case, I've been keeping one "activity" in a single file, and I'm sure this is going to be a maintenance nightmare in the future. Callbacks are interacting with both application data and graphical handle objects, which I suppose is necessary, but that's preventing a complete segregation of the two "halves" of the code base.</p> <p>So I'm looking for some organizational/GUI design help here. Namely:</p> <ul> <li>Is there a directory structure I ought to be using to organize? (Callbacks vs drawing functions?)</li> <li>What's the "right way" to interact with GUI data and keep it segregated from application data? (When I refer to GUI data I mean <code>set/get</code>ting properties of handle objects).</li> <li>How do I avoid putting all these drawing functions into one giant file of thousands of lines and still efficiently pass both application and GUI data back and forth? Is that possible?</li> <li>Is there any performance penalty associated with constantly using <code>set/getappdata</code>?</li> <li>Is there any structure my back-end code (3 object classes and a bunch of helper functions) should take to make it easier to maintain from a GUI perspective?</li> </ul> <p>I'm not a software engineer by trade, I just know enough to be dangerous, so I'm sure these are fairly basic questions for seasoned GUI developers (in any language). I almost feel like the lack of a GUI design standard in MATLAB (does one exist?) is seriously interfering with my ability to complete this project. This is a MATLAB project that is much more massive than any I've ever undertaken, and I've never had to give much thought to complicated UIs with multiple figure windows, etc., before.</p>
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    1. COsome related question: http://stackoverflow.com/q/335535, http://stackoverflow.com/q/3490481. Also: http://stackoverflow.com/q/7699788, http://stackoverflow.com/q/1115703, http://stackoverflow.com/q/16170475, http://stackoverflow.com/q/7708308
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    2. CO@Amro as this is a very useful question, as well as your answer, you may include this link suggestions in your answer rather than here in the comments. It's a nice start for further reading and a little lost in the comments ;)
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