I have a UIBarButtonItem with the UIBarButtonSystemItemSearch type. I can programmatically change the tint color, like so:
searchButton.tintColor = [UIColor purpleColor];
However, what I'm trying to do is figure out a way to programmatically "fill" the button (i.e. the magnifying glass) with a given color. More generally, I'm trying to use a change in the icon to indicate that the search functionality is active.
I really like the built in search icon, but the lack of an obvious fill functionality is annoying. Is there any way to do something like this without creating an entirely custom button/icon? If not, what's the easiest way to utilize the existing search icon to create a custom button that does have the ability to be filled?
First off I would suggest simply using the tintColor to show your selected/unselected states without trying to mess with the shape itself since it is much easier and will convey what you're trying to do. Keep in mind that in this specific case, the magnifying glass may not even look right if it is filled in, that shape is very specific and people are used to seeing empty space in the circle.
If you want to continue on that route though, no you cannot easily change the built-in search icon. Your options are 1. programmatically take a snapshot of such an icon on the screen and try to manipulate that using CoreGraphics (not a great solution) or the better solution 2. which is just to get/make your own image and then you don't have to do any of it programmatically.
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I'm writing an OS X app (target 10.10, Xcode 6.1) and I'm really confused by my custom NSButtonCell subclass. It seems like there are things going on here that shouldn't. I'm new to OS X programming, so I'm asking if anyone has insight into the inner workings of NSButtonCell.
First, what seems to be working?
I can set the button's image and title. The image appears normally.
The storyboard sets up the button to be Style: Textured and Type: Momentary Change. It's not Bordered, not Transparent, and doesn't allow Mixed State.
List of complaints:
I override -drawTitle:withFrame:inView: to draw the title in a custom color depending on the cell's highlighted. This color should be #cccccc when the cell is not highlighted, but it's actually #d6d6d6.
The button has both image and alternate image. The image that's drawn is never the alternate image, so I override -drawImage:withFrame:inView: to pick the correct image for cell's highlighted. This appears to work, but what the heck, NSButtonCell? How is on/off state different from highlighted? I've tried many of the Type options and none seem to change the fact that pressing the button will momentarily change highlighted, and toggle state.
Speaking of momentarily changing highlighted, it appears that its duration is about as short as possible, so I had to implement a sort of "debouncer" to prevent -drawWithFrame:inView: from being called more frequently than a specified threshold.
My button cell also has properties myBackgroundColor and myAlternateBackgroundColor. I'm not using backgroundColor because I need to be able to draw a custom background shape (filled rect, filled circle, etc). The alternate background color is used when highlighted. The problem here is that the alternate background color should be #93edbf but appears to be #a1eecb! In order to get it to look like #93edbf, I need to set the color to #84ecb2.
So far this has all been about one particular instance of this button cell. But in another instance, the alternate background isn't drawing at all! I've read through the storyboard code and the buttons are as identical as they can be. My view controller code likewise updates both button cells' properties at the same time. Why would one button behave differently from another?
I want the button to highlight on mouse down instead of "momentarily" after mouse up. I haven't yet implemented this in my custom cell. Man, NSButtonCell is really lacking some things. How does something like that happen? Don't the OS X and iOS teams ever talk to each other?
What could it be?
I've already verified that the cell's controlTint is set to NSClearControlTint. I've checked for background filters, compositing filters and content filters on the off chance they had anything to do with this.
I know Apple really wants us to use their native look and feel for UI elements, but I never thought they'd go so far as to force the use of some highlight tint.
There is a tool button and a textctrl in the toolbar. I'm trying to expand the textctrl in the horizontal direction to fill all the remaining space.
wxSizer maybe a good choice but it seems not suitable with toolbar because I can't add tool button directly in a sizer.
There is no built in support for this, you will need to handle wxEVT_SIZE (either in the toolbar itself or in the frame containing it, as the size of the toolbar only changes when the size of the frame does), compute the available size (which is going to be tricky, there is no function to find this out neither so I expect you'd have to do some kind of binary search using wxToolBar::FindToolForPosition()) and resize your text control.
It would definitely be much simpler to put both the toolbar and the text in a sizer instead. But it's true that it wouldn't appear quite the same, so if you really want to have the text-inside-toolbar appearance, you would have to do the above. Good luck!
I have a requirement to create a button in a Windows 8.1 app which has an icon and a text label. The icon will be a symbol from Segoe UI Symbols and the text label will be Segoe UI Semibold at a smaller text size.
I want to be able to reuse the button in different places within the app, using different icons and text labels.
How show I go about this? I could create a button and then edit the ContentPresenter to have a horizontally oriented stack panel with two TextBlocks, but then how could I reuse this? And how could I change the text in the two different text blocks?
Should I create a separate custom control with separate dependency properties for each of the textblock strings? I'm interested in hearing what you would do.
thanks
Create a simple Style. To make it easy, I would base it off the standardized AppBarButton style. You can format it to whatever size you want (I have done something similar to make a larger button or one with text on the side).
Have the main icon simply be a ContentPresenter which binds to the Content using a TemplateBinding. Make sure to set the FontFamily to Segoe UI Symbol. Have the text label pull from AutomationProperties.Name, similar to how the AppBarButton style does.
Then, whenever you want to use this just do:
<Button Style="{StaticResource MyCustomButtonStyle}"
Content="" // Where "000" is replaced by the number of the icon you wish to use.
AutomationProperties.Name="Text Label"/>
This should be extensible and easily reproducible to whatever location you need. When copying over the AppBarButton style, I suggest removing the artificial size limits (specifically the width of the main content Grid). I do suggest either giving the Text Label a fixed size or having it pull its size from the specified parent Width, so that it will Wrap correctly.
Hope this helps and happy coding!
Are you desiring to create something like for an AppBar? Take a look at AppBarButton and the style/types it supports. In Windows 8.1 we added some things around SymbolIcon specifically. Since you basically want two pieces of 'content' for your style you'll have to re-purpose one property (unless you create a custom control which doesn't sound needed for this scenario). Using AutiomationProperties.Name for the visible label is a good idea because it will also help with accessibility by default for those users.
Investigate the style for AppBarButton to get you started.
I'd like to create a toolbar item like the central item seen in Xcode/iTune/Instruments/etc:
Can anyone tell me what it's called and how to go about creating my own?
Also, will I face problems getting my app approved by Apple when I submit it to the Mac App Store, for imitating Apple's own apps too much?
I finally implemented the solution from here:
iTunes or Xcode style information box at top of window
Here are the initial results:
This is an Apple's private control, but you cannot create it as a NSToolbarItem. Check this other Q/A to know how to add a custom view in the window's main frame.
Is it possible to draw in the label area of NSToolbar?
I've noticed some interesting things about Instruments:
If you make the window narrow such that the overflow menu is triggered, the items in that menu are all blank.
You can't change the icon size or turn labels on/off.
Colors does not have a label when you add it to the toolbar.
The labels on Space, Flexible Space, and Colors do not line up with the other items' labels.
These are interesting because they seem to fit an idea I had for implementing this: turn labels off, and give all your items custom views, where normal-looking items actually have manually drawn labels. It would obviously be a lot of work, but it gives you enough freedom to effectively do full-height items.
The nice thing is that, unlike the view/window hack that Xcode seems to use, you still have a customizable toolbar with draggable items.
I'm looking for an NSToolBar type of object to use in my application. I need it to be vertical and to look nice. The buttons on the object do not need to be repositioned or customizable like the NSToolBar it, but I would like the same look and feel the NSToolBar has, just vertical.
I've tried the google route, but I'm not really sure what to search for when it comes to looking for obj-c objects or examples.
I know seeing as what I want is basically a static set of buttons along the side of my window I could just use a bunch of buttons, but it doesn't have the nice seamless look that the NSToolBar does.
Is there something out there similar to what I'm looking for? Is there a repository of obj-c objects or a nice collection of them on a site that I'm just not finding?
It wouldn't have much in the way of functionality, but if you check the 'Textured' box (under 'Appearance') in Interface Builder of an NSWindow, it will make the whole window look like a toolbar. Dropping a well-placed NSBox (set to 'Custom', and with a fill color of the background of a window-or-so) on top of the window leaving only a strip for what would look like a toolbar, you would have a visual approximation, although without any functionality of an NSToolbar whatsoever. Buttons would all have to be done manually, etc, etc.
However, I must caution you that this sounds like a major violation of the HIG. If you are trying to make something twitterish, I won't dissuade you, but it is a sort of crosroads there's no need to cross until Apple decides which path it is going to take.
The toolbar itself wouldn't be too tricky, but if you wanted to allow customization, that would be tricky. Since you didn't mention customization (or showing/hiding) all you really want is a vertical bar of buttons and a background color that matches the window color.
Make your window a textured window, using NSTexturedWindowMask, then create a subclass of NSView with the dimensions you want, drawing its background to match the window background color.
-(void)drawRect:(NSRect)dirtyRect {
[[[self window] backgroundColor] set];
NSRectFill(dirtyRect);
}
The buttons will just be subviews of this view.
Like I say, customization and showing/hiding make this is much harder task to achieve.