Highlighting a NSMenuItem with a custom view? - objective-c

Question

I have created a simple NSStatusBar with a NSMenu set as the menu. I have also added a few NSMenuItems to this menu, which work fine (including selectors and highlighting) but as soon as I add a custom view (setView:) no highlighting occurs.
CustomMenuItem *menuItem = [[CustomMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:#"" action:#selector(openPreferences:) keyEquivalent:#""];
[menuItem foo];
[menuItem setTarget:self];
[statusMenu insertItem:menuItem atIndex:0];
[menuItem release];
And my foo method is:
- (void)foo {
NSView *view = [[NSView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(5, 10, 100, 20)];
[self setView:view];
}
If I remove the setView method, it will highlight.
I have searched and searched and cannot find a way of implementing/enabling this.
Edit
I implemented highlight by following the code in this question in my NSView SubClass:
An NSMenuItem's view (instance of an NSView subclass) isn't highlighting on hover
#define menuItem ([self enclosingMenuItem])
- (void) drawRect: (NSRect) rect {
BOOL isHighlighted = [menuItem isHighlighted];
if (isHighlighted) {
[[NSColor selectedMenuItemColor] set];
[NSBezierPath fillRect:rect];
} else {
[super drawRect: rect];
}
}

Answer 1

Here's a rather less long-winded version of the above. It's worked well for me. (backgroundColour is an ivar.)
- (void)drawRect:(NSRect)rect
{
if ([[self enclosingMenuItem] isHighlighted]) {
[[NSColor selectedMenuItemColor] set];
} else if (backgroundColour) {
[backgroundColour set];
}
NSRectFill(rect);
}

Answer 2

Update for 2019:
class CustomMenuItemView: NSView {
private var effectView: NSVisualEffectView
override init(frame: NSRect) {
effectView = NSVisualEffectView()
effectView.state = .active
effectView.material = .selection
effectView.isEmphasized = true
effectView.blendingMode = .behindWindow
super.init(frame: frame)
addSubview(effectView)
effectView.frame = bounds
}
required init?(coder decoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
}
override func draw(_ dirtyRect: NSRect) {
effectView.isHidden = !(enclosingMenuItem?.isHighlighted ?? false)
}
}
Set one of those to your menuItem.view.
(Credit belongs to Sam Soffes who helped me figure this out and sent me almost that code verbatim.)

Answer 3

If you're adding a view to a menu item, that view has to draw the highlight itself. You don't get that for free, I'm afraid. From the Menu Programming Topics:
A menu item with a view does not draw its title, state, font, or other standard drawing attributes, and assigns drawing responsibility entirely to the view.

Answer 4

Yes, as mentioned earlier you must draw it yourself. I use AppKit's NSDrawThreePartImage(…) to draw, and also include checks to use the user's control appearance (blue or graphite.) To get the images, I just took them from a screenshot (if anyone knows a better way, please add a comment.) Here's a piece of my MenuItemView's drawRect:
// draw the highlight gradient
if ([[self menuItem] isHighlighted]) {
NSInteger tint = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] integerForKey:#"AppleAquaColorVariant"];
NSImage *image = (AppleAquaColorGraphite == tint) ? menuItemFillGray : menuItemFillBlue;
NSDrawThreePartImage(dirtyRect, nil, image, nil, NO,
NSCompositeSourceOver, 1.0, [self isFlipped]);
}
else if ([self backgroundColor]) {
[[self backgroundColor] set];
NSRectFill(dirtyRect);
}
EDIT
Should have defined these:
enum AppleAquaColorVariant {
AppleAquaColorBlue = 1,
AppleAquaColorGraphite = 6,
};
These correspond to the two appearance options in System Preferences. Also, menuItemFillGray & menuItemFillBlue are just NSImages of the standard menu item fill gradients.