Nesting tiledlayouts within another tiledlayout

I would like to created a tiledlayout and, within each of the tiles, start another tiledlayout. I assume this kind of nesting is possible since, in the documentation for TiledChartLayout objects, it says that the parent of a TiledChartLayout can be another TiledChartLayout. However, the following example fails to produce the desired nesting. Instead of nesting the second sub-layout in the second tile, it tries to put it in the first tile. Is it possible to do what I am trying to do? If not, under what circumstances does it make sense to parent a TiledChartLayout to another TiledChartLayout.

m1=[5,6];
m2=[1,1,1,2];

T=tiledlayout(3,1); %Outer layout

nexttile(T,[1,1]); axis off %Next outer tile

t=tiledlayout(T,1,2); %first inner layout

for i=1:2
  nexttile(t);
  plot(rand(5,m1(i)));
  legend('Location','southoutside')
end

nexttile(T,[2,1]); axis off   %Next outer tile

t=tiledlayout(T,2,2); %second inner layout

for i=1:4
  nexttile(t);
  plot(rand(5,m2(i)));   
  legend('Location','southoutside')
end

Answer 1

[Yemi Ajayi]

See here

Adapting your example:

T=tiledlayout(3,1); %Outer layout
for i=1:3
    t=tiledlayout(T,1,1); % Inner layout
    t.Layout.Tile = i;
    t.Layout.TileSpan = [1 1];
    nexttile(t);
    plot(rand(5,(i)));    
end
lgd = legend('Orientation',"horizontal");
lgd.Layout.Tile = 'south';

Hope that helps.

[Matt J]

Perfect! Thanks.

Answer 2

[James Sweetman]

Here's a crudely implemented class that achieves the same result.

classdef tiledlayoutnested<handle
    %TILEDLAYOUTNESTED 
    
    properties
        root    (1,1) {isa(root,'matlab.graphics.layout.TiledChartLayout')}
        nested  (1,:) {isa(nested,'matlab.graphics.layout.TiledChartLayout'),...
            isempty(nested)}
    end
    
    methods
        % Constructor
        function tl = tiledlayoutnested(m,n,varargin)
            %%TILEDLAYOUTNESTED
            % Constructs a TILEDLAYOUTNESTED object from a top-level 'root'
            % TILEDLAYOUT object.
            tl.root = tiledlayout(m,n,varargin{:});
        end
        
        
        function nestedtl = nextnest(tl,m,n,varargin)
            %%NEXTNEST
            % Behaves similar to NEXTTILE in that calling NEXTNEST creates
            % a new TILEDLAYOUT object in the next available root tile
            % space.

            nestedtl = tiledlayout(m,n,'Parent',tl.root,varargin{:});
            tl.nested = cat(2,tl.nested,nestedtl);
            nestedtl.Layout.Tile = numel(tl.nested);
        end

        
        function populate(tl,nest)
            %%POPULATE
            % Populates all nested tilelayout objects with axes and indexed
            % titles for the benefit of the user to visually confirm the
            % nested configuration.

            if nargin<2
                arrayfun(@(i) tl.populate(tl.nested(i)),1:numel(tl.nested))
                return
            end
            ax = arrayfun(@(i) nexttile(nest,i),1:prod(nest.GridSize));
            nestidx = find(tl.nested==nest);
            arrayfun(@(i) title(ax(i),sprintf('%i.%i',nestidx,i)),1:numel(ax))
        end
    end

    %% Set functions
    methods
        function set.nested(tl,val)
            tl.nested = tl.setnest(val);
        end
    end
    % Set callbacks
    methods (Access = private)
        function val = setnest(tl,val)
            % Clears nested objects in properties
            if isempty(val)
                delete(tl.nested)
            end
        end
    end
end

Example:

tln = tiledlayoutnested(2,2,'padding','compact');

Invalid expression. Check for missing multiplication operator, missing or unbalanced delimiters, or other syntax error. To construct matrices, use brackets instead of parentheses.

tl1 = nextnest(tln,1,3,'TileSpacing','compact');
nexttile(tl1)
x = linspace(0,2*pi);
plot(x,sin(x))
nexttile(tl1)
plot(x,sin(x.^2))

tl2 = nextnest(tln,2,2)
tln.populate(tl2)

tln.populate(nextnest(tln,1,1))
tln.populate(nextnest(tln,5,3,'TileSpacing','compact','padding','compact'))

nexttile(tl1)
plot(sin(x),cos(x))

gives the following output: