twxticklabel.m

approximate reinforcement learning

function hh = twxticklabel(ax)
%
% TWXTICKLABEL tweaks the xtick labels of the current axis, so that fonts
% are presereved when the figure is exported to eps (e.g. for inclusion
% into LaTeX). 
%
% TWXTICKLABEL(AX) applies TWXTICKLABEL to the axis with handle AX.
%
% H = TWXTICKLABEL  returns in H the handles of all XTick labels so the
% user can change every property which is possible with a text object created by text command.
% Following are a few examples:
%
% h = twxticklabel;
% set(h,'fontsize',12,'fontname','courier'); %  to change font namae and size
% set(h,{'string'},char('10','-3','pi','he','90','ju')); % to change ticklabels
% set(h,'rotation',90); % to change angle
%
% The two m-files TWXTICKLABEL and TWYTICKLABEL motivated by the following problems in the way Matlab handles tick labels.
%1)
% Matlab provides no handles to xtick labels and ytick labels; meaning that you can't change their
% properties separately, but only by changing axis properties. For example, the only way to change
% the fontname of xtick labels is by setting the fontname property of the axis, thus changing the fontname
% of all it object, which may not be desirable. If a user wants to rotate the tick labels, one would
% like to be able to do that with commands like set(handle, 'rotation', 90); but that is only possible if you have
% the handle.
% 
%2)
% Tick labels do not interpret TeX/LaTeX character sequences; What if you want LaTeX expression $W_i(t)$.
%
%3)
% Even if you are happy with changing the properties of the whole axis, another problem arises when the Matlab
% figure is exported to eps for inclusion into LaTeX. It sometimes changes the fonts (set by the user) of the
% xticklabels in an unpredictable way (fortunately, this does not happen with xlabel, ylabel, title and other text object).
%
%
% In these two files, I have tried to create ticklabels by using text command. Handles are returned for all tick labels,
% so the user can change every property which is possible with a text object created by text command.

if nargin == 0
    ax = gca;
end

xtick = get(ax,'XTick')';

if isempty(xtick)
    error('''XTick'' found empty')
end

a = 0.5;
hxlabel = get(ax,'xlabel');
set(hxlabel,'Units','data');
xlabpos = get(hxlabel,'position');
temp = get(ax,'XTickLabel');
xticklab = strjust(temp, 'center');
set(ax,'XTickLabel',[])

xlabpos2 = get(hxlabel,'position');
ylims = get(ax,'ylim');
xtickloc = a*xlabpos2(2) + (1-a)*ylims(1);

h = text(xtick, xtickloc(ones(size(xtick))), xticklab);

set(h, 'fontsize', get(ax,'fontsize'), ...
        'HorizontalAlignment', 'center', 'VerticalAlignment', 'top')

xlabpos(2) = xlabpos(2) + a*(xlabpos(2)-xlabpos2(2));
set(hxlabel, 'position',xlabpos)

if nargout == 1
    hh = h;
end