🚀 go-pugleaf

Mail to the referenced address bounced, so pardon my bandwidth for posting  
the answer here. It's short and sweet, and maybe you'll learn something  
you didn't know about Buttons and ButtonCells anyway.  8^)

In article <U3S9T0P@gwdu03.gwdg.de> mzeller@gwdg.de writes:
> I'd like to have a colored button - I don't want to use a TIFF Icon for  
it.

This is harder than you realize. You would have to subclass ButtonCell,  
not Button, because that's where the actual drawing gets done. In fact,  
the -setXxxColor methods in the View classes, like TextField, are actually  
cover methods for the underlying Cells. To get what you want, you would  
need to add an instance variable for the color(s) and subclass the -read:  
and -:write methods to store it. You would need to add set/return methods  
for the color(s) in the ButtonCell and Button classes. You'd probably want  
a custom IB inspector with a color well, so you wouldn't be forced to set  
the colors programatically.

Here's the really difficult part. You would need to completely replace the  
-drawInside: method of ButtonCell, using your color(s) as the foreground  
and/or background fill color(s). The ButtonCell draw code is complicated.  
There are numerous combinations of text/icon placements, on/off states  
(which may have different icons and/or text), highlighting, etc. You'd  
have to get it all exactly right if you wanted the perfect substitute for  
a ButtonCell. That would take some patience and iterative testing. Plus,  
you'd have to be prepared to enhance its capabilities as new releases of  
the AppKit appear.

I know a lot (not all) about how to do it, but I wouldn't want to replace  
ButtonCell's draw code from scratch on a deadline. I think the best  
solution is to lobby NeXT for this behavior in a future release.
--
Gregory H. Anderson          | Thus spake the master programmer: 
Master Programmer / Manager  | "Let the programmers be many and  
Anderson Financial Systems   | the managers few; then all will be 
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