[NFB-Science] using Matlab from MathWorks

[John Miller]

Hello,
I wonder what other time-savings techniques are out there for using our favorite software applications in STEM.
I have recently learned a couple of things that I never knew about Matlab from MathWorks and accessibility.
I hope other blind individuals will find the approach below helpful when learning more about a Matlab function.
I use Matlab 2023a with the nodesktop option with Windows 10.
It has been my workflow to type help on a Matlab function name to learn more about it.
In this case, I actually give the command diary, then the command help functionName, and then the command diary off. I then open the file diary, select all, and paste the contents into my notes.
For a Matlab function functionName, I observed a colleague type at the command line edit functionName.m.
This opens the Matlab editor on the function itself.  You can step through and often get a very clear idea of what the function does.
The comments at the top I presume are the same information shared with the help command.
Opening up the file itself often shares more information than just the comments such as the step by step of what the function is actually doing.

The Matlab editor is inaccessible so edit functionName.m is not helpful.
But actually it can be.
When I type edit functionName.m, type control-a for select-all, then copy with control-c, and paste the results into an empty notepad file, the entire contents of the file is pasted into notepad.
Viewing this file with line numbers displayed using VIM or notepad++ it is possible to learn where to place a breakpoint if a particular variable needs to be queried on that line number.
I must then go back to the Matlab editor window functionName.m and press alt-f4 to be returned to the Matlab command-line window.
It is worth noting that after opening functionName.m with the edit command it is important not to press tab or shift-tab before the select-all and the copy command.
Pressing tab moves out of the field where copying text is effective.
After sharing this post with MathWorks someone reached back to me from MathWorks describing how I can change my default editor to notepad, notepad++, or vim instead of the built-in Matlab editor.
I have not tried this yet but changing this configuration setting would improve accessibility in my case.
The individual also shared that typing which followed by Matlab command name would return the path to the Matlab file for review.

One of the functions I have been interested in is lowpass.m.  I believe this may be in the signal processing toolbox.
What I recently learned is that lowpass.m can be found by browsing to Program Filess with windows explorer.
Then selecting Matlab, r2023a, toolbox, signal, and signal.
Here is a list of 400 or so .m files.
I can press the applications key, arrow down to open with, and select notepad to have the file open up natively in notepad.
This has given me an expanded idea of what Matlab functions I might choose to use.
Before I was under the impression that these files could only be accessed with the Matlab editor.
I did not know that there is an ASCII text version of them tucked away on my computer.
I have now demonstrated that I can set a breakpoint in one of these files and query or save off the value of a particular variable.
This has helped me sign off on work items assigned to me.



Very best,
John