[DayLateDon]

Hello ...

I want to create an NSMatrix full of buttons with standard radio button/check box-like highlighting behaviour:

x Mouse-down darkens the button (but *doesn't* show the
"alternate" image);

x Dragging darkens/undarkens the button according as
the mouse is within/without the target button's frame
(but *doesn't* darken other buttons in the matrix when
the mouse drags over them);

x Mouse-up deselects the target button, showing the
alternate image if the mouse was released within the
button's frame.

I can't even find appropriate parameters to get stand-alone buttons (no NSMatrix) to exhibit this behaviour. ("Toggle" comes close, except that mouse-down shows the alternate image as well as selecting the button.) Factoring in the NSMatrix' mouse tracking options just complicates matters.

I have been able to create a custom NSMatrix sub-class that does what I want, but I can't help but think that such a common behaviour should be supported right out of the API box.

Insights?


Thanks,

Day Late Don

[sadie]

Why?

In my experience, wanting to make a large number of buttons is usually an indication of something gone wrong.

[DayLateDon]

sadie> In my experience, wanting to make a large number
> of buttons is usually an indication of something
> gone wrong.

I never said I wanted to make a *large* number of buttons. My problem exists for matrices with any number --100, 10, or just 1-- of button cells. And, as I mentioned, I can't even get individual buttons to exhibit the desired highlighting behaviour.

I want to create a bank of 5 (is that a large number?) radio buttons with a custom look (each is a different colour).

I realize now I probably shouldn't expect the emulation of radio buttons to rely on the tracking and highlighting options of regular buttons. I was wrong to think of the "selected" image (with the dot) as the "alternate" image for the control; I should think of radio buttons as "multi-stage" buttons with a different image at each stage.

Unfortunately, the imaging of these buttons seems to be hard-coded to use the system bitmaps, and Apple hasn't provided automatic support for multi-stage buttons with custom images. So, sub-classing NSButton seems to be a must. And, apparently, a sub-class of NSMatrix is in fact required to provide appropriate highlighting behavior across multiple buttons of this type.

I can deal with that (as I wrote, I have an NSMatrix sub-class that does what I want), but it seems an unnecessarily complicated and inelegant solution. I'd rather just override the images for the "off" and "on" states of a radio button or check box and be done with it.

--DayLateDon

[lindberg]

Dragging the radio buttons and checkboxes from InterfaceBuilder's palette should get you the "default" behavior, at least for Cocoa apps. If there are subtle differences in radio button behavior between Carbon and Cocoa apps, maybe you could submit a bug report to Apple. But generally any Cocoa app will just use the widgets directly off of Interface Builder's palette.