Figure origin incorrectly set

I understand there are some bugs in Matlab 2010 with respect to MonitorPositions. This may be related. I am using multiple displays with Mac OS 10.6.8 and Matlab 7.10.0.

get(0,'monitorpositions')
ans=
1 0 1080 1898
5561 818 1920 1080
7481 818 1920 1080
3641 698 1920 1200
1081 458 2560 1440

The first monitor [1 0 1080 1898] is set as the system default monitor. Attempting to position on the system default monitor fails:

set(gcf,'position',[1 0 5000 1000])
get(gcf,'position')
ans=
1081 1 5000 1000

The figure is always positioned at the start of the "second" monitor ([1081 458 2560 1440]). Perhaps this is related to the jumbled order of screens in the monitorpositions output?

Additionally, I honestly don't understand the Macintosh description for monitorpositions here. http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/rootobject_props.html

MATLAB on Macintosh systems recognize only the main monitor. The position data is of the form [x,y,width,height-menuHieght]... The main monitor is determined by which display has the menu bar.

If Matlab only recognizes the main monitor, why do I get expected output with monitorpositions, and if the main monitor defines the origin, why is the origin not set by the main monitor?

I should note that if I attempt to set the gcf positions again, it works as expected, but if and only if I type the command manually. It will not work when being called with a .m file.

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

A few years ago TMW did not officially support multiple monitors. I have never read anything to suggest that anything has changed. http://www.mathworks.co.uk/matlabcentral/answers/3910#comment_7916

[Steve]

Interesting. So, it's included but not officially supported. I might experiment with reordering the plugs into the video cards to see if that affects the order of the monitors returned by MonitorPositions. If so, I might be able to kludge something that way.

Thanks for the thoughts.