Question

I’m trying to present a msgbox in MATLAB which uses horizontal text alignment ‘right’.

Problem is when I’m changing the text alignment, the message text appears out of the box.

h = msgbox('Sample Text');
th = findall(0, 'Tag','MessageBox' );
set(th, 'HorizontalAlignment', 'right');

Does anyone know to present the user with right-to-left message from Matlab?

Answer 1

The message string in the message box is actually created using the text function, i.e., it is positioned by two coordinates (neglecting the z-coordinate). To position it with the alignment right, you’ll need to get the position of the message box and use its width argument to define the x position of the message text:

h = msgbox('Sample Text');
th = findall(0, 'Tag','MessageBox' );

boxPosition = get(h,'position');
textPosition = get(th, 'position'); 

set(th, 'position', [boxPosition(3) textPosition(2) textPosition(3)]);

set(th, 'HorizontalAlignment', 'right');

Since this puts your text exactly to the right border of the box, you’ll need to adjust the text slightly to the left:

set(th, 'position', [boxPosition(3).*0.95 textPosition(2) textPosition(3)]);