Change Xcode's storyboard interface builder canvas colour - xcode

I am using Xcode 6.4 and find the canvas/background colour of the interface builder to be terrible. ViewControllers have a general whitish colour, so does the canvas. It makes viewing rather uncomfortable as there is no contrast between the canvas and the objects I work with (view controllers etc). Is there any way I could change the canvas colour please?

As far as my research into this went, there is no way to change the canvas colour.
UPDATE
There seems to indeed be a way to do this (thanks to deej): here is a link

Related

How to make CGWindowListCreateImage render correct background color?

Capturing an image of an off-screen window with CGWindowListCreateImage is a common way to create QuickLook style zoom-in animations, but this seems create an image with the wrong background colour, slightly lighter than the real window.
This causes a flash at the end of the animation which kind of ruins the effect.
Does anyone have any idea why this happens and what can be done about it?
EDIT: I created a demonstration app for this problem. It is a bit large and complex for a Stack Overflow question, but the relevant code is probably in the ZoomingWindow.m methods takeSnapshot and makeAndPrepareSnapshotWindow.
Setting the window appearance to textured in Interface Builder fixed this. Of course that also changes the color of the window, but that is acceptable in this particular case.

Hiding Titlebar in NSWindow, rounding the corners and keeping the shadow

I like the way the developers behind Vox.app have created a custom titlebar and still kept the original shadow.
If you set the styleMask = NSBorderlessWindowMask it will create another kind of shadow, and the rounded corners are gone.
And it doesn't seem to be that easy to recreate those shadows especially when you also want rounded corners.
I have taken a window shot of the app that I like. Look at the drop shadows and the title bar.
Is it possible (I assume) to do this? And if so, how?
Is it possible (I assume) to do this?
Yes, this is possible.
And if so, how?
You need to subclass the NSWindow and NSView, set the background color, use custom buttons etc.
For curvy-corners, you need to draw using bezier path. I tried reached somewhat near, however titlebar's color is not changed in this screenshot... but I hope you can do it from here:

Blurry NSImageView

I have an NSImageView in a view that utilizes Core Animation. Prior to using Core Animation the image looks fine but now its blurry and low quality. If I let NSImageView have a bezel border the issue goes away but I need it to have no border. Had this happened to anyone else?
Imgae in the background with no border, same image in the front with a border.
Thanks
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the image is an icon file (ICNS) so it has various sizes. The bordered view loads the correct size and the transparent one loads the smallest and stretches it.
Although not the way I wanted to, I managed to create a fix for the issue. The issue seemed to be the way that NSImageView was drawing the image so I created a custom NSView subclass with support for the same bindings I used in my original image view. Im not sure why the blurry-ness happend in the beginning, but drawing the image by hand in an NSView seems to do the trick.
Your image may be drawing in a non-pixel-aligned way. Have you tried shifting it by a half pixel?
Apple has a good demonstration of this in the BlurryView app in their "Cocoa Tips and Tricks" sample code.
Cocoa Tips and Tricks

Transparent rounded window but with opaque controls

I am trying to make a HUD with a transparent rounded window with opaque controls as is commonly seen in apps such as Xcode popups, the native volume control, etc.
I'm using the technique detailed here: How to implement HUD-style window like Address Book's "Show in Large Type"
but this renders controls in the view transparent. I've tried setAlphaValue:1.0 on the controls but that has no effect. Searches for other solutions point to Matt Gemmell's RoundedFloatingPanel component. I can't open the project in Xcode 4, but looking at the code as far as I can tell the only difference seems to be in Matt's code he sets the alpha of the window to 1.0 and uses a transparent fill for the NSRect in the view. I tried this but still end up with transparent controls.
So unsurprisingly, Matt Gemmell's code works just fine and I had made a mistake. I forgot that I was also messing with the alpha of the window elsewhere in my code in order to make it fade out on close.
To to sum it up for others running into this issue, if you set the alpha on the NSWindow the controls in that window will also be transparent. Instead set the alpha on the NSBezierPath fill color in the NSView. Just like Matt Gemmell's code does. :)

how to customize the color of frame and title area of HUD panel

I need to let the user to customize the HUD window appearance. Is there a way to change the frame and the title area color of HUD window? There is an API for changing a background color of the window, but title and the frame stay semitransparent black. I'd like to avoid drawing these areas by myself.
Thanks,
Nava
In case nobody knows, I found a couple of links that do it. One of them is a Synapse project, which shows how to use private headers and draws the window by itself. Definitely it's not straight forward and IMO should be allowed by native interfaces. Many thanks to the guy that wrote it:
Synapse project

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