Release 11 New Features      

Language and Development Environment Enhancements

find Returns Empty Matrix

The find function returns an empty matrix if nothing is found. Previously it returned [0,1].

Multibyte Character Support

On the PC, MATLAB 5.1 added support for multibyte characters (including Kanji) for data.

This feature allows you to use multibyte characters in MATLAB strings. You can also use multibyte characters in Handle Graphics property values and Simulink blocks.

Note that you cannot use multibyte characters in variable, file, or function names. Also, multibyte text may not be machine independent.

Removal of Microsoft Windows TCP/IP Issues

MATLAB 5.0 for Microsoft Windows 95 required the use of TCP/IP networking software even for non-networked installations. For MATLAB 5.1 this requirement was removed. The portions of the MATLAB user interface that depended upon TCP/IP were recoded to use ActiveX.

Notebook Support for Office 97

MATLAB 5.1 provided Notebook support for Microsoft Office 97.

Note The MATLAB 5.1 Notebook worked with Windows NT with Microsoft Office 97. However, for Windows 95, due to an Office 97 problem, you may experience problems printing a Notebook document that includes an imported graphic. See "OFF97: Imported EMF Files Are Not Printed Correctly" in the online Microsoft Knowledge Base for details.

PC Editor/Debugger

For MATLAB 5.1 the PC Editor/Debugger provided new debugging icons on the toolbar. The debugging operations are the same as for MATLAB 5.0. The new debugging icons on the toolbar were:

Toolbar
Button
Description
 Equivalent
Command

Set/Clear Breakpoint: set or clear a breakpoint at the line containing the cursor.

 dbstop/dbclear

Clear All Breakpoints: clear all breakpoints that are currently set.

 dbclear all

Step In: execute the current line of the M-file and if the line is a call to another function, step into that function.

 dbstep in

Single Step: execute the current line of the M-file.

 dbstep

Continue: continue execution of M-file until completion or until another breakpoint is encountered.

 dbcont

Quit Debugging: exit the debugging state.

 dbquit

Handle Graphics Enhancements

MATLAB 5.1 provided some new Handle Graphics functions.

Scatter Plot Functions Added

MATLAB added two new functions, scatter and scatter3, which enable you to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional scatter plots. Each function allows you to specify the style, size, and color of the marks used to create the scatter diagrams.

See the online MATLAB Function Reference for more information about these functions.

X-Windows Support for uisetcolor

The uisetcolor function is supported on X-Windows systems (UNIX).

Previously Undocumented Functions

These two functions existed in MATLAB 5.0, with command line help, but were not documented in the MATLAB 5.0 online Function Reference; they are documented in the MATLAB 5.2 online Function Reference:

Printing Patches and Surfaces

MATLAB 5.1 added support for printing texture-mapped patches and surfaces (this did not work in Version 5.0).

Also, printing interpolated patches and surfaces is more efficient than in Version 5.0.


[ Previous | Next ]