Put datatip stack on top of axis label and update axes label after a change was done on axes position

Question

This issue is only for unix matlabs, windows users won't be able to reproduce it. I am having trouble while trying to create datatips in which are on top of the y axis label. The following picture illustrate the issue: As you can see, the datatips created close to the ylabel will get bottom to the ylabel text, while the desire effect is the opposite: the datatip to be on top of the axis label. I generated the plot with the following (not so minimal) code, which is available bellow. You may remove the lines commented with `% may be removed`, or even just put a datatip on −78 instead of a loop in order to achieve a faster testing script, but I leave this code if someone one day wants it to create custom datatips (in this case, consider seeing also http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/controlling-plot-data-tips/): ``` gradientStep = 1e-1; x=-100:gradientStep:100; xSize=numel(x); y=x.^3-x.^2; figH=figure(42); lineH=plot(x,y); ylabel('YLabel (YUnits)','FontSize',16) xlabel('XLabel (XUnits)',…

Accepted Answer

A workaround that uses both linkaxes, so useful when zooming/panning multiple plots, and the visibilty of plots.

- create an axes (hax_1) with the function to be plotted, without the datatips

- create an axes (hax_2) with the function to be plotted AND the datatips but without the axes labels

- set hax_2 visibility to 'off' (this will plot the datatips above the first axes labels)

- link the 2 axes with linkaxes([hax_1 hax_2],'xy'); (zooming and panning on one of the axes will modify on the fly the second axes)

This gives with your first code (not the edited one):

```
gradientStep = 1e-1;   
x=-100:gradientStep:100; xSize=numel(x);
y=x.^3-x.^2;   
figH=figure(42);
plot(x,y);   
ylabel('YLabel (YUnits)','FontSize',16)
xlabel('XLabel (XUnits)','FontSize',16)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% modification starts

hax_1 = gca;
hax_2 = axes('Position', get(hax_1,'Position'));
lineH = plot(x,y);
linkaxes([hax_1 hax_2],'xy');
set(hax_2,'Visible', 'off');

% modification ends
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

dcH=datacursormode(figH); 
nTips = 20; % May change the loop for a datatip at x=-78.
for pos = round(linspace(2,xSize,nTips))
  datatipH=dcH.createDatatip(lineH,struct('Position',[x(pos) y(pos)]));
  orientation = 'top-left';
  if pos>1
    tipText{1} = 'The grandient here is: ';
    tipText{2} = ['\Deltax:',sprintf('%d',x(pos)-x(pos-1)),' XUnits'];
    tipText{3} = ['\Deltay:',sprintf('%d',y(pos)-y(pos-1)),' YUnits'];
  else
    tipText = 'Cannot calculate gradient here.';
  end
  bkgColor = [1 1 .5]; % May be removed.
  fontSize = 12; % May be removed.
  set(datatipH,'StringFcn',(@(~,~) tipText),'Orientation',orientation,'backGroundColor',bkgColor,'FontSize',fontSize,'Draggable','on');  % Only set text and orientation needed.    
  datatipTextBoxH=get(datatipH,'TextBoxHandle');
  set(datatipTextBoxH,'HorizontalAlignment','left','VerticalAlignment','top','Margin',0.02,'Interpreter','tex','FontName','Courier','FontSize',fontSize); % May be removed.   
end
```

I am on OSX 10.8.4, R2012b, and had the same issue as yours. Here, the proposed solution plots datatips above the axis labels and allow zooming/panning without making use of undocumented features of matlab.

Put datatip stack on top of axis label and update axes label after a change was done on axes position

Solution

Problem