Question

I have found this line of MatLab code on the internet that displays a figure window in fullscreen:

set(figure(1),'Units','Normalized','OuterPosition',[0 0 1 1])  

It works perfectly, and my question isn’t regarding any problems here; it is instead regarding some explanation of it. You see, I don’t understand the code line. Can anybody explain to me the arguments in this?

figure(1) is my figure handler – the current figure window – I understand that. But the rest of the arguments are confusing me. What does Units, Normalized and OuterPosition do, and what is the vector [0 0 1 1] specifying?

I have found the code line here: source (see the latest answer).

I’m having big trouble decrypting the help info provided by the help set command in MatLab. The MathWorks website weren’t better and had no exampls of this that I could find.
Does anyone have some explanation or do you know where to find some understandable info?

Note

Alternatively, does anyone know of a better method for displaying a plot window or figure window in fullscreen? I need to be able to understand the method, or else I can’t use it.

Answer 1

The arguments are considered “property-value pairs”.

The first pair, 'Units', 'Normalized', tells the figure that you’ll be giving it normalized values (between 0 and 1) rather than other options – pixels or inches, for example.

The second pair, 'OuterPosition', [0 0 1 1], tells it that you want to position the figure with the lower left (outside) corner at (0,0) with a width and height of (1,1). Since you indicated that units are normalized, (0,0) means the lower left corner of the screen, and (1,1) means the full height and width of the screen.

Property-value pairs allows you to pass in some relevant information but not other stuff for which the default is fine, and makes the order in which you do so flexible. It is a widely-used system in MATLAB.