Set default to plot in a new figure

Is it possible to set the MATLAB default to automatically open plots in a new figure instead of reusing the current figure?

[José-Luis]

Is it an option to programmatically generate a new figure?

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

It won’t automatically do that (it can’t guess what you’re thinking, unfortunately), but you can program it to do so.

Use the figure function:

x = linspace(0,2*pi,250);

for k1 = 1:3
    y = sin(k1*x);
    figure(k1)
    plot(x, y)
    grid
    axis tight
end

You can also use a variation on this theme to produce subplot axes in a figure.

Answer 2

[Erin]

I was just wondering if there was a way to change the startup file to do it automatically when MATLAB starts.

[Star Strider]

I looked through ‘Options’ and the available online documentation and couldn’t find anything on changing that default. The closest you can likely get is the newplot function. I doubt if it would work as a default anyway, since it reads the current figure’s 'NextPlot' property and acts accordingly.

[jkr]

Can this become an enhancement request please? Reuse figure as a default does all kinds of stupid things, like plotting a histogram on the axes of a prior scatterplot. These can be readily corrected, but involve unnecessary rework. The ability to create plots quickly and easily in the variable browser is a powerful convenience. Why not make it work a bit better. It seems it should be simple.