Is there an option for the UITABLE object which allows the width of the columns to adjust according to their content in MATLAB 7.11 (R2010b)?

In a UITABLE I have many columns of data and would like the width of the columns to be auto-adjusted such that all their content is visible.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The ability to set the column width of UITABLE such that it fully displays content is not available in MATLAB.

To work around this issue, we can set the 'ColumnWidth' property for each column based on the maximum length of data it contains. This can be implemented as follows:

% Assume data is provided

data = {'data1','data2','data3','very large data which does not fit in column';'a','b','c','smallerstringthatfits'};

% Find the size of data

dataSize = size(data);

% Create an array to store the max length of data for each column

maxLen = zeros(1,dataSize(2));

% Find out the max length of data for each column

% Iterate over each column

for i=1:dataSize(2)

      % Iterate over each row

      for j=1:dataSize(1)

          len = length(data{j,i});

          % Store in maxLen only if its the data is of max length

          if(len > maxLen(1,i))

              maxLen(1,i) = len;

          end

      end

end

% Some calibration needed as ColumnWidth is in pixels

cellMaxLen = num2cell(maxLen*7);

% Create UITABLE with required arguments

hTable=uitable('parent',gcf,'units','pixels','position',[20 20 400 300]);

set(hTable, 'Data', data);

% Set ColumnWidth of UITABLE

set(hTable, 'ColumnWidth', cellMaxLen);

[Ben Oeveren]

To make it dynamically, you can use:

set(utable,'units','pixel');
tablew = utable.Position(3); %get with of the uitable
f = tablew/sum(maxLen); % Normalize it to the with of the table
maxLen = max(cellfun(@length,C),[],1); % Calculate the with of the data in cell C. 
cellMaxLen = num2cell(maxLen*f);
set(utable, 'ColumnWidth', cellMaxLen);