Question

In Cocos2d, I have read that

[[[[CCDirector sharedDirector] openGLView] window] addSubview:someButton];

will add a UIView to the main window: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/3588

Yet in my code I have this:

- (void)onEnterTransitionDidFinish {
    UIButton* button = [[UIButton alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100, 100, 100, 100)];
    [[[[CCDirector sharedDirector] openGLView] window] addSubview:button];
}

But no button is visible. This method is part of a CCLayerColor which is the first scene presented in the app, if that matters. What am I doing wrong here? Thanks!

Edit: I can confirm that the buttons are being added to the windows subviews, because NSLogging

[[[[[CCDirector sharedDirector] openGLView] window] subviews] count]

shows a difference when I comment/uncomment the addSubview line. So why isn’t the button showing up?

Edit 2:

Thanks to @Marine, I have found that my problem is the way I am declaring my button; using buttonWithType: solved the problem, because this code works:

UIButton* button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeRoundedRect];
[button setFrame:CGRectMake(100, 100, 100, 100)];
[[[[CCDirector sharedDirector] openGLView] window] addSubview:button];

Can someone explain to me why using this class method works and using initWithFrame: doesn’t? Because I would rather not create lots of autoreleased objects, and also because I have some UIButton subclasses that do NOT show up when I use the buttonWithType: method.

Edit 3 (Solution):

The reason why using anything but buttonWithType: doesn’t work is that if you do not use that method to create the button, the background color of the button is not set, and by default it is clearColor. Using [button setBackgroundColor:[UIColor redColor]] or any other color fixes the problem. Also, if using a custom button class like this one, you might need to manually call [button awakeFromNib] if the button isn’t connected to a nib.

Answer 1

I have posted the solution to the problem as an edit to the question.