Insert Controls

To insert a control into a live script, go to the Live Editor tab, and in the Code section, click Control. Then, select from the available options. To replace an existing value with a control, select the value in the live script and then insert the control. The Control menu shows only the options available for the selected value. To configure the control, right-click the control in the live script and then select Configure Control.

If your live script already contains a control, in some cases, you can replace that control with another control that has similar functionality. To replace a control with another control, right-click it and select Replace with Control Name. You also can select the control in the live script, go to the Live Editor tab, click Control, and select from the available options. Replacing one control with another preserves relevant configuration values, such as range and default values.

This table shows the full list of controls.

Modify Control Labels

You can hide the code in a live script and display only formatted text, labeled controls, tasks, and output. Hiding the code is useful when sharing and exporting live scripts. To hide the code, click the Hide code button to the right of the live script. You also can go to the View tab, and in the View section, click Hide Code. To show the code again, click the Output inline button or the Output on right button .

When the code is hidden, labels display next to the control. To modify the label for a control, right-click the control and select Configure Control. Then, in the Label section, enter the label text. The label text is also the text that displays on button controls in all views. Press Tab or Enter, or click outside of the control configuration menu to return to the live script.

Link Variables to Controls

You can link variables to slider values, spinner values, and drop-down items to create dynamic controls.

To specify the minimum, maximum, and step values for a slider or spinner using variables, right-click the control and select Configure Control. Then, in the Values section, select a workspace variable for Min, Max, and Step. Only variables with numeric values of type double appear in the drop-down list. If the variables that you want to select are not listed, try running the live script first to create the variables in the workspace. Changes to the variables are automatically reflected in the slider or spinner.

To populate the items in a drop-down list using the values stored in a variable, right-click the control and select Configure Control. Then, in the Items section, select a workspace variable from the Variable list. The variable must be a string array or (since R2024b) a categorical array, character array, cell array, or double array, to appear in the list. If the variable that you want to select is not listed, try running the live script first to create the variable in the workspace. Changes to the variable are automatically reflected in the drop-down list.

For example, create a live script and define the variable lastnames containing a list of last names.

lastnames = ["Houston","Vega","Obrien","Potter","Rivera","Hanson","Fowler","Tran","Briggs"];

Run the live script to create lastnames in the workspace. Then, go to the Live Editor tab, and in the Code section, select Control > Drop Down. In the Items section of the control configuration menu, select lastnames as the Variable.

Close the configuration menu to return to the live script. The drop-down list now contains the last names defined in lastnames.

If you add, remove, or edit the values in lastnames, MATLAB^® updates the items in the drop-down list accordingly.

Specify Default Values

You can set the default value for some controls, including sliders, spinners, drop-down lists, check boxes, edit fields, state buttons, color pickers, and date pickers.

To set the default value for a control, right-click the control and select Configure Control. Then, in the Defaults section, specify a default value by entering the value or by selecting a workspace variable from the list. The list shows only valid variables for the control. For drop-down lists, select the default value from the list of items.

To restore the default value for a control, right-click the control and select Restore Default Value. To restore the default values for all controls in a live script, right-click any control in the live script and select Restore Default Values for All Controls.

Modify Control Execution

You can modify when and what code runs when the value of a control changes. By default, when the value of a control changes, the Live Editor runs the code in the current section. To configure this behavior, right-click the control and select Configure Control. Then, in the Execution section, modify the values of the fields described in the table. Press Tab or Enter, or click outside of the control configuration menu to return to the live script.

Create Live Script with Multiple Interactive Controls

This example shows how you can use interactive controls to visualize and investigate patient data in MATLAB. Using a variety of interactive controls, you can filter a list of patients and then plot the age and systolic blood pressure of the filtered list, highlighting the patients over a specified blood pressure.

The example uses variables to control the slider and spinner values, as well as the drop-down list items. For instance, to filter the patient list by location, insert a drop-down list and select the locationStrings variable to populate the items in the list. To filter the patient list by age, insert a slider and select the minAge and maxAge variables as the Min and Max values. To specify a threshold systolic blood pressure, insert a spinner and select the minPressure and maxPressure variables as the Min and Max values.

To filter the data only when the Filter Data button is pressed, set the Run execution option for the drop-down list, checkbox, slider, and edit field to Nothing.

To view and interact with the controls, open this example in your browser or in MATLAB.

filename = "patients.xls";
T = readtable(filename);

locationStrings = ["VA Hospital","County General Hospital","St. Mary's Medical Center"];
selectedLocation = locationStrings(1);

isSmoker = true;

maxAge = max(T.Age);
minAge = min(T.Age);
minimumAge = 31;

nameContains = "e";

 

idx = T.Location==selectedLocation & T.Smoker==isSmoker & T.Age>=minimumAge;
if ~strcmp(nameContains,"")
    idx = idx & contains(T.LastName,nameContains);
end
TFiltered = T(idx,:);

minPressure = min(TFiltered.Systolic);
maxPressure = max(TFiltered.Systolic);
thresholdPressure = 123;

TOverThreshold = TFiltered(TFiltered.Systolic>=thresholdPressure,:);

sp1 = scatter(TFiltered.Age,TFiltered.Systolic);
hold on
sp2 = scatter(TOverThreshold.Age,TOverThreshold.Systolic,"red");
hold off

title("Age vs. Systolic Blood Pressure of Patients")
xlabel("Age")
ylabel("Systolic Blood Pressure")

legendText = sprintf("Patients with systolic blood pressure over %d mmHg",thresholdPressure);
legend(sp2,legendText,Location="southoutside")

Share Live Script

When the live script is complete, share it with others. Users can open the live script in MATLAB and experiment with it by using the controls interactively.

If you share the live script itself as an interactive document, consider hiding the code in the live script before sharing it. When the code is hidden, the Live Editor displays only formatted text, labeled controls, tasks, and output. If a task in the live script is configured to show only code and no controls, then the task does not display when you hide the code. To hide the code, click the Hide code button to the right of the live script. You also can go to the View tab, and in the View section, click Hide Code.

If you share the live script as a PDF file, Microsoft^® Word document, HTML file, LaTeX file, Markdown file, or Jupyter^® notebook, the Live Editor saves the controls as code. For example, if the Create Live Script with Multiple Interactive Controls example live script is exported to HTML (using the Export options on the Live Editor tab), the file browser control is replaced with its current value ("patients.xls"), the drop-down list control is replaced with its current value (locationStrings(1)), the check box control is replaced with its current value (false), the slider control is replaced with its current value (31), and the text box control is replaced with its current value ("e"). The Filter Data button is not displayed.