NSButton how to color the text

Question

on OSX I have an NSButton with a pretty dark image and unfortunately it is not possible to change the color using the attributes inspector. See picture the big black button,

Answer 1

Apple have code for setting the text colour of an NSButton as part of the Popover example.

Below is the crux of the example (modified slightly for this post, untested):

NSButton *button = ...;
NSMutableAttributedString *attrTitle =
    [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"Make Me Red"];
NSUInteger len = [attrTitle length];
NSRange range = NSMakeRange(0, len);
[attrTitle addAttribute:NSForegroundColorAttributeName value:[NSColor redColor] range:range];
[attrTitle fixAttributesInRange:range];
[button setAttributedTitle:attrTitle];

Note that the call to fixAttributesInRange: seems to be important (an AppKit extension), but I can't find documentation as to why that is the case. The only concern I have with using attributed strings in an NSButton is if an image is also defined for the button (such as an icon), the attributed string will occupy a large rectangle and push the image to the edge of the button. Something to bear in mind.

Otherwise it seems the best way is to make your own drawRect: override instead, which has many other pitfalls that are outside the scope of this question.