How to add a CALayer to an NSView on Mac OS X

Question

I\'m trying to learn how to use and implement CALayer in a Mac Objective-C application, but I can\'t seem to probably do the most basic thing - add a new layer and

Answer 1

You need to make a call to the "setWantsLayer" method.

Check out the following documentation for the description for setWantsLayer: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ApplicationKit/Classes/NSView_Class/Reference/NSView.html

In a nutshell, your view needs to be layer-hosting view. Because it is a layer-hosting view, you should interact with the layer, and NOT interact with the view itself and don't add subviews to it.

[self setLayer:[CALayer new]];
[self setWantsLayer:YES];     // the order of setLayer and setWantsLayer is crucial!
[self.layer setBackgroundColor:[backgroundColor CGColor]];