Font change on selecting NSTextField

Question

I am wanting to create a simple label with an attributed string. I do this like this:

NSDictionary *noNotificationsAttrs = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:centredStyle,
                                      NSParagraphStyleAttributeName,
                                      [NSFont fontWithName:@"Raleway-Bold" size:30],
                                      NSFontAttributeName,
                                      _grey,
                                      NSForegroundColorAttributeName,
                                      nil];
NSMutableAttributedString *noNotificationsString =
[[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"No Notifications"
                                       attributes:noNotificationsAttrs];

NSTextField* title_field = [[NSTextField alloc] initWithFrame:
                             CGRectMake(
                                        0,
                                        0,
                                        200,
                                        200
                                        )
                             ];
[title_field setWantsLayer:true];
[title_field setSelectable:YES];
[title_field setAllowsEditingTextAttributes:true];
[title_field setAttributedStringValue:noNotificationsString];
[title_field setEditable:false];
[title_field setBordered:false];
title_field.tag = 1;

Which turns out like this:

and

Unfortunately when clicking (selecting) this label it appears like this:

and

Which is a bit bolder and pixelated around the corners. This is happening with lots of other labels with different strings, sizes and colours. How can I fix it?!

Please note these labels are nested inside nsscrollview -> nstableview -> viewForTableColumn

Stack on selection:

I believe the problem is that NSCell calls an edit function on mousedown.

The font is also different on selection!!

Edit:

Interestingly if I remove wantslayer:YES from the (2) parent view it does not do this. But they both need wantslayer or else I can't have curved corners etc...

You can fix it by not setting the background to `clearColor`. — Willeke, Jul 22 '17 at 21:31
You are the best. If only you had answered my bounty on another question I wrote! Make sure you write that as an answer. — maxisme, Jul 24 '17 at 09:59
yes!! But still only kinda works. See my answer which kind of works. — maxisme, Jul 31 '17 at 13:58
I can't reproduce the problem. What is `centredStyle`? Can you reproduce it using a font which is included in macOS? — Willeke, Aug 01 '17 at 08:21
@Willeke yes get the same thing. If you have time please see my repo https://github.com/maxisme/notifi — maxisme, Aug 01 '17 at 08:25
Everything looks fine on my (non retina) Mac. Maybe related: [Creating a label using NSTextField is blurry](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3917871/creating-a-label-using-nstextfield-is-blurry) — Willeke, Aug 01 '17 at 16:17
No, I copied `MyButton` and `MyLabel` and changed the font to Copperplate-Bold. I called `setOpaque:NO` and `setBackgroundColor:[NSColor clearColor]` on my window, it looks weird. — Willeke, Aug 01 '17 at 22:51

Saranjith · Answer 1 · 2017-08-09T08:17:38.553

1

Add this line to your code.

NSTextView *textEditor = (NSTextView *)[[[NSApplication sharedApplication] keyWindow] fieldEditor:YES forObject:title_field];

[textEditor setSelectedTextAttributes:noNotificationsAttrs];

Thus adding the attributes to NSTextView associated with window while selection.

What you're getting now like bold and font changes after selection will get overrided.

Edit:

Working code

Have changed NSForegroundColorAttributeName to NSBackgroundColorAttributeName and _grey to [NSColor clearColor]

NSDictionary *noNotificationsAttrs = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:centredStyle,
                                      NSParagraphStyleAttributeName,
                                      [NSFont fontWithName:@"Raleway-Bold" size:30],
                                      NSFontAttributeName,
                                      [NSColor clearColor],
                                      NSBackgroundColorAttributeName,
                                      nil];

edited Aug 09 '17 at 08:17

answered Aug 01 '17 at 05:56

Saranjith

11,242
5
69
122

`No visible @interface for 'MyLabel' declares the selector 'setSelectedTextAttributes:'` – maxisme Aug 01 '17 at 08:42
what is `InputWindow`? – maxisme Aug 01 '17 at 08:52
and `InputTextField`? – maxisme Aug 01 '17 at 08:52
still happens :( – maxisme Aug 01 '17 at 09:03
See my comment in the main question to see all the code! I believe it has something more to do with the fact it is nested in an nsscroll – maxisme Aug 01 '17 at 12:12
No unfortunately not!! – maxisme Aug 06 '17 at 13:25
Can u give me the source code. Only the part the problem occurs – Saranjith Aug 06 '17 at 15:59
Ok let me check – Saranjith Aug 08 '17 at 03:39
Can you pls join me https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/151327/cocoa-app – Saranjith Aug 08 '17 at 04:27

maxisme · Answer 2 · 2017-07-31T13:58:17.277

0

To fix this I made a custom NSTextField where on select it updates like this:

- (void)textViewDidChangeSelection:(NSNotification *)a{
    [self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
    [self setNeedsLayout:YES];
    [self.superview setNeedsLayout:YES];
    [self.superview setNeedsDisplay:YES];
}

but still acts funny some times

edited Jul 31 '17 at 13:58

answered Jul 29 '17 at 18:04

maxisme

3,974
9
47
97

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 21 '22 at 14:04

0

This behaviour seems to be solved by allowing editing text attributes:

let textField = NSTextField()
textField.allowsEditingTextAttributes = true
textField.isSelectable = true

answered Mar 21 '22 at 14:04

vicegax

4,709
28
37

Font change on selecting NSTextField

Stack on selection:

Edit:

3 Answers3

Working code