Documentation

# ColorBar Properties

Colorbar appearance and behavior

ColorBar properties control the appearance and behavior of a ColorBar object. By changing property values, you can modify certain aspects of the colorbar. Use dot notation to refer to a particular object and property:

c = colorbar; w = c.LineWidth; c.LineWidth = 1.5;

## Ticks and Labels

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Tick mark locations, specified as a vector of monotonically increasing numeric values. The values do not need to be equally spaced. If you do not want tick marks displayed, then set the property to the empty vector, [].

Example: [-1,0,1,2,3,4,5]

Data Types: single | double

Selection mode for Ticks, specified as one of these values:

• 'auto' — Automatically choose tick values.

• 'manual' — Manually specify tick values. To specify the tick values, set the Ticks property.

Tick mark labels, specified as a cell array of character vectors, a string array, a numeric array, a character vector, or a categorical array. By default, the colorbar labels the tick marks with numeric values. If you specify labels and do not specify enough labels for all the tick marks, then MATLAB® cycles through the labels.

If you specify this property as a categorical array, MATLAB uses the values in the array, not the categories.

Example: {'cold','warm','hot'}

Selection mode for TickLabels, specified as one of these values:

• 'auto' — Automatically choose the tick labels.

• 'manual' — Manually specify tick labels. To specify the tick labels, set the TickLabels property.

Interpretation of tick label characters, specified as one of these values:

• 'tex' — Interpret labels using a subset of the TeX markup.

• 'latex' — Interpret labels using a subset of LaTeX markup.

• 'none' — Display literal characters

#### TeX Markup

By default, MATLAB supports a subset of TeX markup. Use TeX markup to add superscripts and subscripts, modify the text type and color, and include special characters in the labels.

This table lists the supported modifiers when the TickLabelInterpreter property is set to 'tex', which is the default value. Most modifiers remain in effect until the end of the text. Superscripts and subscripts modify only the next character or the text within the curly braces {}.

ModifierDescriptionExample
^{ }Superscript'text^{superscript}'
_{ }Subscript'text_{subscript}'
\bfBold font'\bf text'
\itItalic font'\it text'
\slOblique font (rarely available)'\sl text'
\rmNormal font'\rm text'
\fontname{specifier}Set specifier as the name of a font family to change the font style. You can use this in combination with other modifiers.'\fontname{Courier} text'
\fontsize{specifier}Set specifier as a scalar numeric value to change the font size.'\fontsize{15} text'
\color{specifier}Set specifer as one of these colors: red, green, yellow, magenta, blue, black, white, gray, darkGreen, orange, or lightBlue.'\color{magenta} text'
\color[rgb]{specifier}Set specifier as a three-element RGB triplet to change the font color.'\color[rgb]{0,0.5,0.5} text'

This table lists the supported special characters with the Interpreter property set to 'tex'.

Character SequenceSymbolCharacter SequenceSymbolCharacter SequenceSymbol

\alpha

α

\upsilon

υ

\sim

~

\angle

\phi

\leq

\ast

*

\chi

χ

\infty

\beta

β

\psi

ψ

\clubsuit

\gamma

γ

\omega

ω

\diamondsuit

\delta

δ

\Gamma

Γ

\heartsuit

\epsilon

ϵ

\Delta

Δ

\spadesuit

\zeta

ζ

\Theta

Θ

\leftrightarrow

\eta

η

\Lambda

Λ

\leftarrow

\theta

θ

\Xi

Ξ

\Leftarrow

\vartheta

ϑ

\Pi

Π

\uparrow

\iota

ι

\Sigma

Σ

\rightarrow

\kappa

κ

\Upsilon

ϒ

\Rightarrow

\lambda

λ

\Phi

Φ

\downarrow

\mu

µ

\Psi

Ψ

\circ

º

\nu

ν

\Omega

Ω

\pm

±

\xi

ξ

\forall

\geq

\pi

π

\exists

\propto

\rho

ρ

\ni

\partial

\sigma

σ

\cong

\bullet

\varsigma

ς

\approx

\div

÷

\tau

τ

\Re

\neq

\equiv

\oplus

\aleph

\Im

\cup

\wp

\otimes

\subseteq

\oslash

\cap

\in

\supseteq

\supset

\lceil

\subset

\int

\cdot

·

\o

ο

\rfloor

\neg

¬

\nabla

\lfloor

\times

x

\ldots

...

\perp

\surd

\prime

´

\wedge

\varpi

ϖ

\0

\rceil

\rangle

\mid

|

\vee

\langle

\copyright

#### LaTeX Markup

To use LaTeX markup, set the TickLabelInterpreter property to 'latex'. The displayed text uses the default LaTeX font style. The FontName, FontWeight, and FontAngle properties do not have an effect. To change the font style, use LaTeX markup within the text.

The maximum size of the text that you can use with the LaTeX interpreter is 1200 characters. For multiline text, the maximum size of the text reduces by about 10 characters per line.

The minimum and maximum tick mark values, specified as a two-element vector. The second vector element must be greater than the first element.

Example: [0 1]

Data Types: single | double | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64

Selection mode for limits, specified as one of these values:

• 'auto' — Automatically choose the limits.

• 'manual' — Use manually specified limits. To specify the limits, set the Limits property.

Label that displays along the colorbar, returned as a text object. This text object contains properties that control the label appearance and the text that displays. Use the Label property to access the text object, for example:

c = colorbar; c.Label
ans = Text with properties: String: '' FontSize: 10 FontWeight: 'normal' FontName: 'Helvetica' Color: [0.1500 0.1500 0.1500] HorizontalAlignment: 'left' Position: [0 0 0] Units: 'data' Show all properties

To add a label, or change a label, set the String property for the text object, for example:

c.Label.String = 'Label Text Goes Here'; 

To change the label appearance, such as the font style or color, set other text properties. For example, this code changes the font size.

c.Label.FontSize = 12;

For a full list of options, see Text Properties.

Direction of color scale, specified as one of these values:

• 'normal' — Display the colormap and labels ascending from bottom to top for a vertical colorbar, and ascending from left to right for a horizontal colorbar.

• 'reverse' — Display the colormap and labels descending from bottom to top for a vertical colorbar, and descending from left to right for a horizontal colorbar.

Tick mark length, specified as a scalar. Specify the tick length as a fraction of the colorbar axis length.

Example: 0.05

Data Types: single | double | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64

Tick mark direction, specified as one of these values:

ValueDescriptionResult
'in'Display the tick marks inside colorbar box.

'out'Display the tick marks outside the colorbar box.

## Font

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Font name, specified as a supported font name or 'FixedWidth'. To display and print text properly, you must choose a font that your system supports. The default font depends on your operating system and locale.

To use a fixed-width font that looks good in any locale, use 'FixedWidth'. The fixed-width font relies on the root FixedWidthFontName property. Setting the root FixedWidthFontName property causes an immediate update of the display to use the new font.

Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than zero in point units. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale.

If you change the axes font size, then MATLAB automatically sets the font size of the colorbar to 90% of the axes font size. If you manually set the font size of the colorbar, then changing the axes font size does not affect the colorbar font.

Character slant, specified as 'normal' or 'italic'.

Not all fonts have both font styles. Therefore, the italic font might look the same as the normal font.

Character thickness, specified as 'normal' or 'bold'.

MATLAB uses the FontWeight property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight can still result in the normal font weight.

## Position

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Location with respect to the axes, specified as one of the values listed in this table.

ValueResulting LocationResulting Orientation
'north'Top of axesHorizontal
'south'Bottom of axesHorizontal
'east'Right side of axesVertical
'west'Left side of axesVertical
'northoutside'Top outside of axesHorizontal
'southoutside'Bottom outside of axesHorizontal
'eastoutside'Right outside of axes (default)Vertical
'westoutside'Left outside of axesVertical
'manual'Determined by Position propertyVertical

To display the colorbar in a location that does not appear in the table, use the Position property to specify a custom location. If you set the Position property, then MATLAB sets the Location property to 'manual'. The associated axes does not resize to accommodate the colorbar when the Location property is set to 'manual'.

Axis location, specified as one of the following values. Use this property to specify the location of the tick marks, tick labels, and colorbar label.

• 'out' — Display the tick marks and labels on the side of the colorbar towards the outside of the figure. This is the default value.

• 'in' — Display the tick marks and labels on the side of the colorbar towards the inside of the figure.

Selection mode for AxisLocation, specified as one of these values:

• 'auto' — Automatically choose the location.

• 'manual' — Use a manually specified location. To specify the location, set the AxisLocation property.

Custom location and size, specified as a four-element vector of the form [left, bottom, width, height]. The left and bottom elements specify the distance from the lower-left corner of the figure or to the lower-left corner of the colorbar. The width and height elements specify the dimensions of the colorbar. The Units property determines the position units.

If you specify the Position property, then MATLAB changes the Location property to 'manual'. The associated axes does not resize to accommodate the colorbar when the Location property is 'manual'.

Example: [0.1 0.1 0.3 0.7]

### Note

Setting this property has no effect when the parent container is a TiledChartLayout.

Position units, specified as one of the values in this table.

UnitsDescription
'normalized' (default)Normalized with respect to the container, which is usually the figure. The lower left corner of the figure maps to (0,0) and the upper right corner maps to (1,1).
'inches'Inches.
'centimeters'Centimeters.
'characters'

Based on the default system font character size.

• Character width = width of letter x.

• Character height = distance between the baselines of two lines of text.

'points'Points. One point equals 1/72 inch.
'pixels'

Pixels.

Starting in R2015b, distances in pixels are independent of your system resolution on Windows® and Macintosh systems.

• On Windows systems, a pixel is 1/96th of an inch.

• On Macintosh systems, a pixel is 1/72nd of an inch.

• On Linux® systems, the size of a pixel is determined by your system resolution.

All units are measured from the lower-left corner of the container window.

This property affects the Position property. If you change the units, then it is good practice to return it to its default value after completing your computation to prevent affecting other functions that assume Units is the default value.

If you specify the Position and Units properties as Name,Value pairs when creating the object, then the order of specification matters. If you want to define the position with particular units, then you must set the Units property before the Position property.

## Color and Styling

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Color of the tick marks, text, and box outline, specified as an RGB triplet, a hexadecimal color code, a color name, or a short name.

For a custom color, specify an RGB triplet or a hexadecimal color code.

• An RGB triplet is a three-element row vector whose elements specify the intensities of the red, green, and blue components of the color. The intensities must be in the range [0,1]; for example, [0.4 0.6 0.7].

• A hexadecimal color code is a character vector or a string scalar that starts with a hash symbol (#) followed by three or six hexadecimal digits, which can range from 0 to F. The values are not case sensitive. Thus, the color codes '#FF8800', '#ff8800', '#F80', and '#f80' are equivalent.

Alternatively, you can specify some common colors by name. This table lists the named color options, the equivalent RGB triplets, and hexadecimal color codes.

Color NameShort NameRGB TripletHexadecimal Color CodeAppearance
'red''r'[1 0 0]'#FF0000'

'green''g'[0 1 0]'#00FF00'

'blue''b'[0 0 1]'#0000FF'

'cyan' 'c'[0 1 1]'#00FFFF'

'magenta''m'[1 0 1]'#FF00FF'

'yellow''y'[1 1 0]'#FFFF00'

'black''k'[0 0 0]'#000000'

'white''w'[1 1 1]'#FFFFFF'

'none'Not applicableNot applicableNot applicableNo color

Here are the RGB triplets and hexadecimal color codes for the default colors MATLAB uses in many types of plots.

[0 0.4470 0.7410]'#0072BD'

[0.8500 0.3250 0.0980]'#D95319'

[0.9290 0.6940 0.1250]'#EDB120'

[0.4940 0.1840 0.5560]'#7E2F8E'

[0.4660 0.6740 0.1880]'#77AC30'

[0.3010 0.7450 0.9330]'#4DBEEE'

[0.6350 0.0780 0.1840]'#A2142F'

Example: [0 1 0]

Example: 'green'

Example: '#00FF00'

Box outline, specified as one of these values:

• 'on' — Display the box outline around the colorbar.

• 'off' — Do not display the box outline around the colorbar.

Width of box outline, specified as a positive value in point units. One point equals 1/72 inch.

Example: 1.5

## Interactivity

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State of visibility, specified as one of these values:

• 'on' — Display the object.

• 'off' — Hide the object without deleting it. You still can access the properties of an invisible object.

Context menu, specified as a ContextMenu object. Use this property to display a context menu when you right-click the object. Create the context menu using the uicontextmenu function.

### Note

If the PickableParts property is set to 'none' or if the HitTest property is set to 'off', then the context menu does not appear.

Selection state, specified as one of these values:

• 'on' — Selected. If you click the object when in plot edit mode, then MATLAB sets its Selected property to 'on'. If the SelectionHighlight property also is set to 'on', then MATLAB displays selection handles around the object.

• 'off' — Not selected.

Display of selection handles when selected, specified as one of these values:

• 'on' — Display selection handles when the Selected property is set to 'on'.

• 'off' — Never display selection handles, even when the Selected property is set to 'on'.

## Callbacks

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Mouse-click callback, specified as one of these values:

• Function handle

• Cell array containing a function handle and additional arguments

• Character vector that is a valid MATLAB command or function, which is evaluated in the base workspace (not recommended)

Use this property to execute code when you click the object. If you specify this property using a function handle, then MATLAB passes two arguments to the callback function when executing the callback:

• Clicked object — Access properties of the clicked object from within the callback function.

• Event data — Empty argument. Replace it with the tilde character (~) in the function definition to indicate that this argument is not used.

For more information on how to use function handles to define callback functions, see Callback Definition.

### Note

If the PickableParts property is set to 'none' or if the HitTest property is set to 'off', then this callback does not execute.

Object creation function, specified as one of these values:

• Function handle.

• Cell array in which the first element is a function handle. Subsequent elements in the cell array are the arguments to pass to the callback function.

• Character vector containing a valid MATLAB expression (not recommended). MATLAB evaluates this expression in the base workspace.

For more information about specifying a callback as a function handle, cell array, or character vector, see Callback Definition.

This property specifies a callback function to execute when MATLAB creates the object. MATLAB initializes all property values before executing the CreateFcn callback. If you do not specify the CreateFcn property, then MATLAB executes a default creation function.

Setting the CreateFcn property on an existing component has no effect.

If you specify this property as a function handle or cell array, you can access the object that is being created using the first argument of the callback function. Otherwise, use the gcbo function to access the object.

Object deletion function, specified as one of these values:

• Function handle.

• Cell array in which the first element is a function handle. Subsequent elements in the cell array are the arguments to pass to the callback function.

• Character vector containing a valid MATLAB expression (not recommended). MATLAB evaluates this expression in the base workspace.

For more information about specifying a callback as a function handle, cell array, or character vector, see Callback Definition.

This property specifies a callback function to execute when MATLAB deletes the object. MATLAB executes the DeleteFcn callback before destroying the properties of the object. If you do not specify the DeleteFcn property, then MATLAB executes a default deletion function.

If you specify this property as a function handle or cell array, you can access the object that is being deleted using the first argument of the callback function. Otherwise, use the gcbo function to access the object.

## Callback Execution Control

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Callback interruption, specified as 'off' or 'on'. The Interruptible property determines if a running callback can be interrupted.

Consider these callback states where:

• The running callback is the currently executing callback.

• The interrupting callback is a callback that tries to interrupt the running callback.

Whenever MATLAB invokes a callback, that callback attempts to interrupt a running callback. The Interruptible property of the object owning the running callback determines if interruption is permitted. The Interruptible property has two possible values:

• 'off' — The running callback cannot be interrupted. MATLAB finishes executing the running callback without any interruptions. The BusyAction property of the object owning the interrupting callback determines if it is discarded or put in the queue.

• 'on' — The running callback can be interrupted. Interruption occurs at the next point where MATLAB processes the queue. For example, when you have a command such as drawnow, figure, getframe, waitfor, or pause.

• If the running callback contains one of these commands, then MATLAB stops the execution of the callback at this point and executes the interrupting callback. MATLAB resumes executing the running callback when the interrupting callback completes.

• If the running callback does not contain one of these commands, then MATLAB finishes executing the callback without interruption.

Callback queuing, specified as 'queue' or 'cancel'. The BusyAction property determines how MATLAB handles the execution of interrupting callbacks. There are two callback states to consider:

• The running callback is the currently executing callback.

• The interrupting callback is a callback that tries to interrupt the running callback.

Whenever MATLAB invokes a callback, that callback attempts to interrupt a running callback. The Interruptible property of the object owning the running callback determines if interruption is permitted. If interruption is not permitted, then the BusyAction property of the object owning the interrupting callback determines if it is discarded or put in the queue. These are possible values of the BusyAction property:

• 'queue' — Puts the interrupting callback in a queue to be processed after the running callback finishes execution.

• 'cancel' — Does not execute the interrupting callback.

Ability to capture mouse clicks, specified as one of these values:

• 'visible' — Capture mouse clicks only when visible. The Visible property must be set to 'on'. The HitTest property determines if the ColorBar object responds to the click or if an ancestor does.

• 'none' — Cannot capture mouse clicks. Clicking the ColorBar object passes the click to the object behind it in the current view of the figure window. The HitTest property of the ColorBar object has no effect.

Response to captured mouse clicks, specified as one of these values:

• 'on' — Trigger the ButtonDownFcn callback of the ColorBar object. If you have defined the UIContextMenu property, then invoke the context menu.

• 'off' — Trigger the callbacks for the nearest ancestor of the ColorBar object that has one of these:

• HitTest property set to 'on'

• PickableParts property set to a value that enables the ancestor to capture mouse clicks

### Note

The PickableParts property determines if the ColorBar object can capture mouse clicks. If it cannot, then the HitTest property has no effect.

Deletion status, returned as 'off' or 'on'. MATLAB sets the BeingDeleted property to 'on' when the DeleteFcn callback begins execution. The BeingDeleted property remains set to 'on' until the component object no longer exists.

Check the value of the BeingDeleted property to verify that the object is not about to be deleted before querying or modifying it.

## Parent/Child

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Parent container, specified as a Figure object, Panel object, Tab object, or a TiledChartLayout object.

The ColorBar object must have the same parent as the associated axes. If you change the parent of the associated axes, then the ColorBar object automatically updates to use the same parent.

The object has no children. You cannot set this property.

Visibility of the object handle in the Children property of the parent, specified as one of these values:

• 'on' — Object handle is always visible.

• 'off' — Object handle is invisible at all times. This option is useful for preventing unintended changes by another function. Set the HandleVisibility to 'off' to temporarily hide the handle during the execution of that function.

• 'callback' — Object handle is visible from within callbacks or functions invoked by callbacks, but not from within functions invoked from the command line. This option blocks access to the object at the command line, but permits callback functions to access it.

If the object is not listed in the Children property of the parent, then functions that obtain object handles by searching the object hierarchy or querying handle properties cannot return it. Examples of such functions include the get, findobj, gca, gcf, gco, newplot, cla, clf, and close functions.

Hidden object handles are still valid. Set the root ShowHiddenHandles property to 'on' to list all object handles regardless of their HandleVisibility property setting.

## Identifiers

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Type of graphics object, returned as 'colorbar'.

Use this property to find objects in a hierarchy. For example, you can use the findobj function to find objects that have a specific Type property value.

Object identifier, specified as a character vector or string scalar. You can specify a unique Tag value to serve as an identifier for an object. When you need access to the object elsewhere in your code, you can use the findobj function to search for the object based on the Tag value.

User data, specified as any MATLAB array. For example, you can specify a scalar, vector, matrix, cell array, character array, table, or structure. Use this property to store arbitrary data on an object.

If you are working in App Designer, create public or private properties in the app to share data instead of using the UserData property. For more information, see Share Data Within App Designer Apps.