Paul Mennen

> Warwick wrote: Is there an easy way I can set a default to a publication figure?

Certainly Warwick. Create a new file in the plt folder called pltpub.m which contains this:

function out = pltpub(varargin)
out = plt(varargin{:},...
'ColorDef',0,...
'TraceID',0,...
'Options','-AN');

Then for example you can type something like "pltpub(x,[y1;y2;y3])" and those 3 traces will be plotted using parameters appropriate for generating publication hardcopy.

Thanks for your rating and comments Warwick.

> Nick wrote: It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to
> add a publish feature that would take away the menu items ...

Looks like you have noticed my bias towards data exploration, yet I haven't ignored the publishing angles entirely. For example, after you get everything looking the way you would like to publish the figure, right click on the y-axis label and the data exploration items (i.e. menu box, cursor controls, cursor readouts) disappear so as not to clutter up your copy.

Also you can include the 'colorDef' command to specify the colors you would like to use. The simplest choice is 'colorDef','Default' or 'colorDef',0 which selects the usual Mathworks' color scheme which isn't bad for publication use. If you start plt with its default dark background colors the screen colors will get inverted when you do a hardcopy (since printing with a black background generally produces miserable results).

For years I've been trying to get plt users to run the demo program (demoplt.m) at least once, yet amazingly enough when I ask new users they nearly always tell me they haven't run it.

That's unfortunate since one of the example plots would usually show the user that the feature they were pining for is available, and shows them the example code that does it. In your case, the appropriate example is called "pub" which shows two plots optimized for publication. These examples are also described in the .chm help file, although of course nobody reads manuals any more (even me) ... and I'm used to that by now :)

Anyway Nick, thanks for your review as well as the 5 stars!

~Paul

Andreas - Most everyone prefers to use the dotted grid style so I didn't put an explicit option in for that. However after the call to plt you can change the grid to solid with the following command:

set(findobj(gcf,'user','grid'),'LineStyle','-')

Jeff - There is a way to force plt to do something like hold on/off but its messy and I wouldn't recommend it since it is so different from the work flow that I imagined for plt. Perhaps you could let me know what exactly you are trying to plot and I probably can suggest the best way for you to use plt to accomplish that. Also you might peruse the various demo programs for ideas on how best to use plt.

Christine - I'm not sure I understand your question exactly. Perhaps its just that you want to know what a color such as [x y z] looks like? If that's the question, the answer is pretty simple. The 3 numbers are the amount of Red, Green, and Blue in the selected color. (The numbers must be between 0 and 1. Plenty about that in the matlab documentation.) Here is a good way to see what any color selection will look like: In any plot created with plt, enable the menu bar by clicking on the "Menu" tag, then select the last menu ("Color/Lines"). Then select "Edit line". Then in the new figure that appears, RIGHT click on the 3 numbers below the line properties color popup. This will open the color pick window which initially will show you a palette of 256 colors possible with red=0. To see the palette with some other value of red, just move the red slider. Or move the green slider to force that amount of green and see a palette of colors that results. (Same for the blue slider of course). I hope that helps.

Is there a functionality similar to using 'hold on' for the normal 'plot' command?

I have used just few features of this function, but it's very easy to use and the opportunities it gives are infinite.
Very useful zooming and panning axes functions by using the mouse.