Stacking order of figures

Suppose I create three figures

for ni = 1:3
    figure
    plot(rand(7))
    drawnow
end

These will be drawn with Figure 1 on the bottom, Figure 2 in the middle, and Figure 3 on top, remaining viewable at the end.

How can change the stacking order? Prior to 2014b, one could sort the Children of the root object numerically, but I can't figure out how to do it in 2014b.

Answer 1

[Doug Hull]

Maybe I am misunderstanding the question:

close all
for ni = 1:3
    figure
    plot(rand(7))
    drawnow
end

uistack(2,'top')

uistack(1,'top')

[the cyclist]

You are not misunderstanding, but this tiny extension of your code does not correctly order the figures (in 2014b on latest Mac OS X):

rng('default')

NFIGURES = 4;

close all force

for nf = 1:NFIGURES
    figure
    plot(rand(7))
    drawnow
end

for nf = NFIGURES-1:-1:1
    uistack(nf,'top')
end

Bug?

FYI, how I did this formerly (and successfully) was

set(0,'Children',sort(get(0,'Children')));

[matt dash]

Have you tried

set(0,'Children',sort(double(get(0,'Children'))));

[the cyclist]

Yes, that seems to work. Thanks!

[Tim Hattrell]

An explicit version of the above command, which doesn't rely on casting a figure handle to double returning the figure number is:

set(groot,'Children',sort([get(groot,'Children').Number]))

This also uses groot to point to the graphics root object, rather than the magic number 0.

From reading the documentation, This will only find and re-order figures with visible handles. To work with all figures, you need to use findall.