matlab: `hold off` statement changes FigureNextplot property permanently when 'add' is not the default

user_6351004 0
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I set the default FigureNextplot property to 'new', as opposed to the factory default 'add':

set(groot, 'DefaultFigureNextplot', 'new')

When using hold on Matlab sets the FigureNextplot and AxesNextplot properties to 'add', as it should. However, when I then finish working on the graph, hold off resets the AxesNextplot property, but not the FigureNextplot property.

What is the reasoning behind this? Is there a way to keep using my default setting without ridding my codes of all hold statements?

matlab-figure matlab
1 Answers

You can use a workaround to prevent the figure's NextPlot property from being changed:

  • Intercept the call to hold by saving the following user-defined function in a file named hold.m, placing that file in a user folder and adding that folder to the path with addpath.
  • This user-defined function takes note of the figure's NextPlot property, calls the original hold function, and then restores the figure's NextPlot property.
function hold(varargin)

fnp = get(gcf, 'NextPlot'); % get figure's NextPlot property
w = which('hold' ,'-all'); % paths to the modified and original hold functions
dir = pwd; % take note of current folder
cd(fileparts(w{2})); % change to folder of original hold function
oh = @hold; % get a handle to that function
cd(dir) % restore folder
feval(oh, varargin{:}) % call original hold function
set(gcf, 'NextPlot', fnp); % set figure's NextPlot property to its previous value

Note that if you call hold without arguments to toggle the hold state between on and off, the on state is recognized as both the figure's and axis' NextPlot properties having the values add. This can be seen in the code of the original hold function:

nexta = get(ax,'NextPlot');
nextf = get(fig,'NextPlot');
hold_state = strcmp(nexta,'add') && strcmp(nextf,'add');

Therefore, if the figure's NextPlot property has the value New, the hold state is always considered to be off, regardless of value of the axis' NextPlot property. Thus a call to hold without arguments always results in the plot being held.

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