matlab - Running a GUI requires opening the .fig file in GUIDE

Question

I am trying to run a MATLAB GUI I have created. If I open the .fig file using GUIDE and press the run button there, it runs perfectly.

However, when I double-click the .fig file in the 'Current Folder' section of MATLAB, it seems to be unable to find the handles variable. This causes it to give an error whenever handles is used.

Why does this happen? Is there a fix/workaround?

I'm using MATLAB R2011, but I've tried it on R2012 as well. The code runs fine, and displays the GUI fine, but the moment it encounters the handles variable, it gives the following error:

Attempt to reference field of non-structure array.

Answer 1

When you create a GUI using GUIDE, it should create both a .fig file and a .m file. To run it, you should run the .m file, rather than double-clicking the .fig file.

The .fig file just contains static information about the layout of the GUI - there is nothing executable in it that would initialise handles and so on.