HUD Buttons using Template Images

Question

I'm building a semi-transparent floating HUD window in my application, which is intended to look like the Quick Look HUD window, specifically using the Enter/Exit full screen image. Cocoa provides the NSEnterFullScreenTemplate (and NSExitFullScreenTemplate) templates, which serve this purpose, and work fine on bordered buttons.

As soon as I remove the border and put the button on a dark background though, it keeps a dark gray color, and makes it difficult to see. I'd like to make it white, like in Quick Look. Is there a built-in way to do this, or do I have to resort to scaling and coloring the image myself?

Answer 1

I ended up writing an NSImage category class method that returns a template image at the desired size and in the desired color (basically doing it myself, as I don't think the API does provide a way to do this).

+(NSImage *)templateImage:(NSString *)templateName
                withColor:(NSColor *)tint
                  andSize:(CGSize)targetSize
{
    NSImage *template = [NSImage imageNamed:templateName];
    NSSize size = (CGSizeEqualToSize(targetSize, CGSizeZero)
                   ? [template size]
                   : targetSize);
    NSRect imageBounds = NSMakeRect(0, 0, size.width, size.height);

    NSImage *copiedImage = [template copy];
    [copiedImage setTemplate:NO];
    [copiedImage setSize:size];

    [copiedImage lockFocus];

    [tint set];
    NSRectFillUsingOperation(imageBounds, NSCompositeSourceAtop);

    [copiedImage unlockFocus];

    return [copiedImage autorelease];
}

Answer 2

[NSCell setBackgroundStyle: NSBackgroundStyleDark]

NSBackgroundStyleDark

The background is a dark color. Light contents contrast well with the dark background.