How to customize / style a UIPopoverController - coding-style

I'm working on an iPad application and I'm using UIPopoverControllers. I'm at the part where the app needs to be branded and styled and i'm wondering how to change the color / tint of the UIPopoverController? Standard is dark blue but it needs to be another color..
is this possible?
Greets, Thomas

This is possible starting in iOS 5.0 by subclassing the abstract class UIPopoverBackgroundView and assigning your subclass to the popoverBackgroundViewClass property on your UIPopoverController instance. Unfortunately there is no tintColor property as the popover needs to use images for it's arrow and border in order to achieve smooth animations during dynamic resizing. You can learn more about how to customize the appearance of a UIPopoverController in the UIPopoverBackgroundView Class Reference

It's impossible for now.
It's what I call the "Box in a Box" model. You get control of the box inside of the box (the UIViewController inside of the UIPopoverController), but you have very limited control over the actual popover itself. Outside of the arrow direction and the size, you can't change much else. There are also options for a modal effect popover, which dims everything else when it shows up, but I haven't tried to get it working.
I'm sure you've noticed there is no UIPopover class by now.
The answer you want to hear:
If you really want to style one that bad, just write your own. It's really not that hard.
The link you want to click:
Cocoacontrols is an index of iOS and OSX components available on GitHub, they have some popover stuff.

iOS 7 introduces backgroundColor property of UIPopoverController which affects/includes the navigation background color as well as arrows of popover.
#property (nonatomic, copy) UIColor *backgroundColor NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(7_0);
Usage example:
if ([self.popoverVC respondsToSelector:#selector(setBackgroundColor:)]) { // Check to avoid app crash prior to iOS 7
self.popoverVC.backgroundColor = [UIColor greenColor]; // [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:#"..."] doesn't reflect the color on simulator but on device it works!
}
Note - As of now (iOS 7.0.3), in some cases (like set color using colorWithPatternImage:), the simulator (and even some devices) doesn't honor the color.

Throwing my hat in here;
I've leveraged UIPopoverBackgroundViews in iOS 5+ to add a simple tintColor property onto UIPopoverControllers.
PCPopoverController: https://github.com/pcperini/PCPopoverController

I try to trick it by customizing the view controller inside the popover and then hiding the popover border using this code:
UIView * border = [[insideViewController.view.superview.superview.superview subviews] objectAtIndex:0];
border.hidden = YES;
The app is actually still in development so I'm hoping other people will comment on this solution.

check out these latest projects leveraging UIPopoverBackgroundView
https://github.com/CRedit360/C360PopoverBackgroundView
https://github.com/GiK/GIKPopoverBackgroundView

from ios 5 onward it is can be done, here is a library
https://github.com/ddebin/DDPopoverBackgroundView
just look at the documentation , and it is quite easy
good luck

You can use Elegant Popover cocoapod for just that. You can customise shape and colour of the arrow and the popover itself. Also, you can add colourful borders to the popover.

I know this is a lousy constructed answer, but I've just been playing with the UIPopoverController's views. They do exist.
The only way to access them is from your view that is sitting in the UIPopovercontroller.
I have a navigation controller so I follow this hierarchy
UIView *test = ((UIView *)[[[self.navigationController.view.superview.superview.subviews objectAtIndex:0] subviews] objectAtIndex:1]);
UIView *test2 = ((UIView *)[[[self.navigationController.view.superview.superview.subviews objectAtIndex:0] subviews] objectAtIndex:1]);
test.backgroundColor = [UIColor greenColor];
test2.backgroundColor = [UIColor greenColor];
This isn't exactly the end goal, but it is really close.
you'll find that the_view_in_the_popover.superview.superview (maybe just one superview if you are not reaching out from a navigation controller view) is a UIPopoverView. If you cast it as a UIView and treat it as a UIView you're not really breaking any rules. I guess that is really up to apple though.

Remove UIPopoverController border:
NSArray* subviews = ((UIView*)[popupController.contentViewController.view.superview.superview.superview.subviews objectAtIndex:0]).subviews;
for(UIView *subview in subviews){
[subview removeFromSuperview];
}

Related

Change UIActionSheet buttons background color and button font

I have a UIActionSheet in my application. I want to change the background color of actionsheet buttons and the font of the buttons. I made a search found below code:
for (UIView *_currentView in actionSheet.subviews)
{
if ([_currentView isKindOfClass:[UIButton class]])
{
//DO YOUR WORK
}
}
but this code is not working on ios 8. for ios I found below code too:
[[UIView appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UIAlertController class], nil] setTintColor:[UIColor redColor]];
but this code only changes the button's font color.
Is there a way for changing the button's background color too?
Basically what you are trying to do is something you should not do and should never have been doing. UIActionSheet and UIAlertController provide standard views with a very small number of variants and a completely standard appearance. You should not attempt to mess with that.
However, don't give up hope! Nothing stops you from devising your own view that looks however you want. And on iOS 8 (and iOS 7) this is very easy, because you are allowed to make a presented view controller whose view slides onto the screen and covers it only partially, just like an alert sheet. So go ahead and create your own non-standard column of buttons, rather than trying to modify Apple's standard.
What works for me is this:
UICollectionViewCell.appearance().backgroundColor = UIColor.whiteColor() // or any other color you want
Note that this affects the background when presented in a popover or on the iPhone. If you are using UICollectionViews elsewhere in your app, set the background color manually to override.

Trouble matching the vibrant background of a Yosemite NSMenuItem containing a custom view

I am attempting to add a custom view to an NSMenuItem in the OS X 10.10 Yosemite menu bar.
The custom view is simply an NSView background with an NSTextField “label”.
The problem is that the background NSView is given Yosemite-style vibrancy/transparency when added to the menu. The NSTextfield label is not.
Through the use of NSRectFillUsingOperation I've gotten this to look good for some background colors in Yosemite. But others continue to not match. When it is working, after manually "highlighting" the view, the original colors change and no longer match. I can dig up some example code for this if needed.
Then, when it is looking somewhat good in Yosemite, it looks terrible in 10.9 Mavericks.
I've also tried setting the wantsLayer property to YES to turn the view into a CALayer-backed view. This creates other issues such as text not anti-aliasing correctly against a clear background.
My Question:
How do I display a label on top of a NSMenuItem custom view? The label's background must exactly match the view's background. Solution must work in Yosemite and Mavericks.
Example code below:
self.statusItem = [[NSStatusBar systemStatusBar]
statusItemWithLength:NSVariableStatusItemLength];
[self.statusItem setTitle:#"TEST"];
[self.statusItem setHighlightMode:YES];
[self.statusItem setEnabled:YES];
[self.statusItem setTarget:self];
NSMenu *menu = [[NSMenu alloc] init];
[menu addItemWithTitle:#"Disabled menu item" action:nil keyEquivalent:#""];
[menu addItemWithTitle:#"Enabled menu item" action:#selector(enabled) keyEquivalent:#""];
NSTextField *label = [[NSTextField alloc] initWithFrame:NSMakeRect(30, 20, 50, 20)];
label.stringValue = #"label";
label.editable = NO;
label.bordered = NO;
label.backgroundColor = [NSColor blueColor];
//label.backgroundColor = [NSColor clearColor];
PKMenuItemView *view = [[PKMenuItemView alloc] initWithFrame:NSMakeRect(0, 0, 200, 50)];
[view addSubview:label];
NSMenuItem *viewMenuItem = [[NSMenuItem alloc] init];
[viewMenuItem setView:view];
[menu addItem:viewMenuItem];
self.statusItem.menu = menu;
I've subclassed the NSView to override drawRect: and draw a colored background:
- (void)drawRect:(NSRect)dirtyRect {
[super drawRect:dirtyRect];
[[NSColor blueColor] setFill];
NSRectFill(dirtyRect);
//NSRectFillUsingOperation(dirtyRect, NSCompositeSourceOver);
}
It is surely kinda hack, but it worked for me.
Try adding an NSImageView with empty image to your custom view. Image view must be occupy the whole view.
I think I have less "hackish" solution. It's indeed caused by the new NSVisualEffectView and Vibrancy stuff in Yosemite. I learned that there are quite complex rules how views are drawn when they're subviews of NSVisualEffectView. It was discussed on WWDC 2014 in session 220 - Adopting Advanced Features of the New UI of OS X Yosemite. I recommend you to watch this session video to get comprehensive explanation.
Shortly, it seems that your problem may be caused by colors you use. There are two new system colors - [NSColor labelColor] and [NSColor secondaryLabelColor]. These two are automatically adjusted when drawn inside NSVisualEffectView. Also, your custom view should support Vibrancy effect. This is done by overriding - (BOOL)allowsVibrancy method and returning YES.
Please check the session video mentioned above or download session slides in PDF to get precise information. This stuff is discussed from slide 124 in PDF and near the middle of the video.
Unfortunately there are currently several problems in Yosemite. As Matthes already mentioned, you can use labelColor() and secondaryLabelColor(). Using those colors do not cause the label to draw the strange background you are seeing.
However, labelColor() only works fine for VibrantDark because there the label color is white when a NSMenuItem is both highlighted and when not highlighted. With VibrantLight the labelColor is black and is therefore very difficult to read on on top of the blue highlight.
For the highlight color of the custom view of your NSMenuItem one might think that you should use selectedMenuItemColor() given its name. The problem with this is that the color doesn't actually match the menu highlight color that you see in NSMenuItems without a custom view. The color is completely wrong for both VibrantLight and VibrantDark.
Tl;dr: So how can you create a custom NSMenuItem that uses the exact same text color and highlight color? You can't. You should use labelColor() and selectedMenuItemColor() but the former only works correctly for VibrantDark, and the latter doesn't match at all.
I really hope I am wrong because I am trying to achieve the same thing :(
Edit: Here is an example project if people want to have a look.
Response from a Apple Developer Technical Support ticket I opened in 2015:
Re: DTS Auto-Ack - Vibrant background and highlighting of Custom View NSMenuItems
This is a difficult problem to tackle, especially in light of the fact that menu selection drawing was not intended for menu items with custom views, and menu selection drawing (colors, etc.) may change in the future. This is why we ask you to file bug reports so that menu selection will be honored with custom views, if asked for, so that future changes to OS X won’t require developers to continually maintain their code to match future color appearances.
The “Application Menu and Pop-up List Programming Topics” says this:
Views in Menu Items -
“A menu item with a view does not draw its title, state, font, or other standard drawing attributes, and assigns drawing responsibility entirely to the view. Keyboard equivalents and type-select continue to use the key equivalent and title as normal.”
Since all drawing is up to the developer, custom views in menu items aren’t necessarily supposed to draw “selected”.
The APIs to obtain the right selection color is obviously not doing what it’s supposed to, hence the request to file a bug report. I wish we could offer more concrete solutions to the problem but a workaround offered today may not hold up tomorrow and we don’t want to set a bad precedent on workarounds that are risky. Apple apps have access to lower level private APIs that achieve their results. We cannot offer you these solutions as they are private.
If selectedMenuItemColor() does not match the menu highlight color with Vibrant light and dark, that’s a bug to be filed and to be fixed.
Lastly, Apple recommends to use NSMenuItem’s APIs as much as possible to achieve what you want in menus. The screenshots you included can likely be done without applying custom views.
I've just discovered that +[NSColor keyboardFocusIndicatorColor] is the right color (on El Capitan at least), whereas the expected selectedMenuItemColor is by far too dark.
Per AppKit engineers at WWDC, this doesn't really work with NSMenuItem. I added that answer to this question as well.
They suggested to instead use an NSPopover to create a faux-NSMenu attached to an NSStatusItem menu bar helper.
Using code similar to the below results in vibrant background selection:
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let visualEffectView = NSVisualEffectView()
visualEffectView.material = .selection
// .menu or .popover for the non-selected background.
visualEffectView.state = .active
visualEffectView.blendingMode = .behindWindow
visualEffectView.isEmphasized = true
let label = NSTextField(labelWithString: "Hello, world!")
label.cell?.backgroundStyle = .emphasized
visualEffectView.addSubview(label)
visualEffectView.frame = view.bounds
label.setFrameOrigin(.zero)
view.addSubview(visualEffectView)
}
At the WWDC 2019 AppKit Lab I worked through this issue with engineers from the AppKit team.
They were surprised that it did not work by default, and encouraged me to file (more) radars:
FB6143574 - Expose private API for NSMenuItem _viewHandlesEvents
They were aware of a private API _viewHandlesEvents on NSMenuItem.
// VibrantMenuBar-Bridging-Header.h
#import <AppKit/AppKit.h>
#interface NSMenuItem ()
#property (setter=_setViewHandlesEvents:) BOOL _viewHandlesEvents;
#end
Set viewHandlesEvents to false and the background of the custom view in the NSMenuItem will be selected and appear (somewhat) as expected.
There are still issues with how labels and other subviews react to the selection. Text View text is not properly changing color.
let menuItem = NSMenuItem(title: "", action: nil, keyEquivalent: "")
menuItem.view = label
menuItem._viewHandlesEvents = false
There are some other references to _viewHandlesEvents on the internet:
How to flash a custom NSMenuItem view after selection?

How to change the color of a NSToolbarItem's label

I'd like to change the color of all of my NSToolbarItem's labels.
I need to set it to white because it suits better to the background color of my NSWindow, but it defaults to black and I haven't found a way to change it neither in Interface Builder nor directly by code (NSToolbarItem implements setLabel, but it just sets the text string).
If possible, I'd like to avoid:
Replacing the whole NSToolbar by a custom NSView. Would feel like reinventing the wheel to me.
Having to create custom NSViews inside NSToolbarItem. It would imply having to leave blank all of its labels and adding the white-colored label inside the custom view.
In case anyone is interested, I solved it by:
Using custom views inside NSToolbarItems containing both a button and a label.
Displaying icon only instead of icon + label in NSToolbar in order to hide the default label.
I had to deal with another problem related to a bug with Interface Builder: the custom view was not showing at all. I was able to fix it thanks to this answer.
You can change it using NSMutableAttributeString.
For example:
-(void) awakeFromNib{
NSMutableAttributedString *title = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:self.label];
NSRange titleRange = NSMakeRange(0, title.length);
[title addAttribute:NSForegroundColorAttributeName value:[NSColor redColor] range:titleRange];
[self setLabel:title]; }
You have to subclass NSBarButtonItem and override the drawRect method for that. Otherwise it will use [NSColor controlTextColor] or [NSColor disabledControlTextColor].

Apple Interface Builder: adding subview to UIImageView

I created UIImageView with the help of Interface Bulder. Now I want to place label inside it (as its subview). In code I can type something like: [myUIImageView addSubview:myUILabel]; But can I do it with the help of IB? I found the solution for UIView, but can't find something similar for UIImageView.
You cannot add a subview to UIImageView in interface builder for reasons only known to Apple! You are right in saying that you can addSubview programmatically, but then, the overhead of setting autoresizing masks and placements of subviews should all be handled in code, which is cumbersome.
So there is an easy workaround. Instead of dragging an instance of UIImageView in the nib, just drag a UIView and change its class to UIImageView from UIView (cmd+4 option of inspector). The only difference you find in the nib for default imageView instance and your new UIImageView subclass instance is: you cannot set image to your new imageView from nib (cmd+1 option). So, in the -viewDidLoad method of its appropriate viewController, set image to this outlet of UIImageView.
By doing so, you are free to add subviews to your "now UIImageView" instances in interface builder, which is much easy.
I would like to add answer.
While it sucks you cannot add subview to UIImageView, you can get the same effect by incorporating UIView with transparent (clear color) background.
Then put the UIImageview BEFORE it.
So the UIView has the subviews and the UIImageview is the background of the UIView.
I think that's apple's intent.
Here is a screenshot:
Here is the result:
Don't forget to set background as clear color
Now if someone could actually point me to a tutorial how to do this it'll be great. I spent hours doing it the checked answered way. The checked answer is a fine answer but very unintuitive because you can't see your background image clearly while working. I think mine is the proper way to do so.
In latest XCode(4.5) there is an option to drag and drop the required controls to the parent.
It is quite easy.
Attached screen shot for the same. I dragged the Label/TextField and Button to UIImageView
Use this code:
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed:#"background.png"];
UIImageView *imageView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:image];
[self.view insertSubview:imageView atIndex:0];
(replace background.png with image) (replace atIndex:0 with whatever place in the .index root you want to insert the image and your off.

NSTextView not refreshed properly on scrolling

I have a NSTextView with a sizeable quantity of text. Whenever I scroll however, the view isn't updated properly. There are some artifacts that remain at the top or the bottom of the view. It appears that the view doesn't refresh itself often enough. If I scroll very slowly the view updates correctly though. If I add a border to the view everything works perfectly, borderless view is the one that has a problem. Here's a link to a screenshot:
Thanks
Have you set the setDrawsBackground and copiesOnScroll propertes for either the NSScrollView or the NSClipView?
The first thing I would suggest is turning off the "draws background" property of the NSScrollView:
[myScrollView setDrawsBackground:NO];
Note that this should be set on the NSScrollView, and not on the embedded NSClipView.
The following excerpt from the documentation may be relevant:
If your NSScrollView encloses an NSClipView sending a setDrawsBackground: message with a parameter of NO to the NSScrollView has the added effect of sending the NSClipView a setCopiesOnScroll: message with a parameter of NO. The side effect of sending the setDrawsBackground: message directly to the NSClipView instead would be the appearance of “trails” (vestiges of previous drawing) in the document view as it is scrolled.
Looks like the text field isn't even in the scrolling-area... Are you sure something isnt overlapping it?
I had a similar trouble - artifacts develop when the NSTextView is embedded in another scrollview (ie. a NSTableView).
I actually turned on the setdrawsbackground, and then added a nice color to make it disappear again.
-(void)awakeFromNib{
NSScrollView *scroll = [self enclosingScrollView];
[scroll setBorderType:NSNoBorder];
[scroll setDrawsBackground:YES];
[scroll setBackgroundColor:[NSColor windowBackgroundColor]];
}
This in combination with a scrollWheel event let me use the NSTextView in a NSTableView.
-(void)scrollWheel:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
NSScrollView *scroll = [self enclosingScrollView];
[[scroll superview] scrollWheel:theEvent];
}
I had the same trouble some time ago. I don't remember how I solved it.
Try to place the NSTextView to another view if the superview is a custom view. Just to see what will happen.

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