Click a NSPushButton programmatically with "animation"

Question

I just ran into a problem I already know from other programming languages/frameworks .... Whenever the user clicks a certain button on the keyboard, he triggers the same action than when a certain button in the GUI is pressed. ( Some guys call these "shortcuts" ;D )

To give the user an optical feedback, I would like to sorta "click" the button programmatically rather than calling the same functions that get called when the button is clicked.

If I set the button as a key equivalent in IB, it looks exactly as I want to have it. Can't do that here as the shortcut should just be enabled if the right textfields have focus.

Couldn't find a method in NSButton or similar that sounded right. I'm sure you guys can give me some direction!

Best and thanks in advance

score 23 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 12 '12 at 00:47

23

You can just send performClick: to the button. It will highlight itself, send its action to its target, and then unhighlight itself.

[self.someButton performClick:self];

If you really want to just highlight and unhighlight the button manually, you can use the highlight: method.

[self.someButton highlight:YES]; // button appears pressed
[self.someButton highlight:NO]; // button appears unpressed

answered Jan 12 '12 at 00:47

rob mayoff

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Exactly! Thanks for your answer .... why didn't I see that myself ... may be the time of day ;-) – guitarflow Jan 12 '12 at 00:52
I edited my answer. You may have seen my original answer. The new answer is better. – rob mayoff Jan 12 '12 at 00:53
Yap, saw it. Edited mine, too ;D – guitarflow Jan 12 '12 at 00:56

Click a NSPushButton programmatically with "animation"

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