How to create a custom themed NSButton without subclassing NSButtonCell?

Question

I am currently working on a custom themed NSButton. Every tutorial, or guide I have found requires to subclass NSButtonCell, even the guide from Ap

Answer 1

I would definitely spend more time looking into the layer-backed view approach. I'm not sure why it didn't work for you because there's no reason for layers not to work on an NSButton (effectively an NSView derivative).

Also weighing on looking more into layers is your mentioning of animation.

Some code extracted from a project I am working on (custom NSButton):

From init()...

    self.wantsLayer = true
    self.layerContentsRedrawPolicy = NSViewLayerContentsRedrawPolicy.OnSetNeedsDisplay

    self.layer?.borderColor = NSColor.gridColor().CGColor
    self.layer?.borderWidth = 0.5
    self.layer?.backgroundColor = NSColor.whiteColor().CGColor

You can then get fine-grained control in the display cycle specific to layers with:

override var wantsUpdateLayer:Bool{
    return true
}

override func updateLayer() {
    // your code here
    super.updateLayer()
}

If your custom button needs a shape then you can even use a CAShapeLayer below to make your backing layer a special shape...more detail to be looked into.

override func makeBackingLayer() -> CALayer {
    return CAShapeLayer()
}