How to put a timeout to ginput. (2024)

Hi Akshat,

I understand that your goal is to show a figure and ask the user to click somewhere within a stipulated time limit (e.g., 2 seconds). The following approach would enable you achieve this:

1. Plot the Figure: Plot the figure you wish to show the customer.
2. Initialize Coordinates: Initialize "xt" and "yt" to "NaN".
3. Create Click Flag: Create a flag "clicked" to check if the user has clicked.
4. Create Timer: Create a timer object "t" with a "StartDelay" of "timeout" seconds. Set the "TimerFcn" to "uiresume(gcbf)", which resumes the figure's execution when the timer elapses.
5. Start Timer: Start the timer with "start(t)".
6. Set Mouse Click Callback: Set the "WindowButtonDownFcn" to "mouseClickFcn", which sets the "clicked" flag to "true" and resumes the figure's execution when the user clicks.
7. Wait for User Input or Timeout: Use the "uiwait(gcf, timeout)" function to wait for the figure to be resumed by either the timer or the mouse click.
8. Clean Up Timer: Stop and delete the timer object with "stop(t)" and "delete(t)".
9. Check Click Flag: Check if the "clicked" flag is "true" to determine if the user clicked within the timeout period.
10. Display Coordinates: Print the clicked coordinates to the console.

Here is an example:

The following resources are useful for further explorations:

• https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/creating_plots/capturing-mouse-clicks.html
• https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/creating_plots/create-callbacks-for-graphics-objects.html
• "uiwait": https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/uiwait.html
• "uiresume": https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/uiresume.html

I hope this helps!