Question

So I am basically trying to make a list of selectable text items (just a list of text, no button bezels, backgrounds, etc.). I suppose that I could make this happen with an NSTableview, but trying to make the table view completely transparent and still functional was giving me some issues. Anwyays, I am trying to do it with NSButtons that I create programatically and add to my view in a list, without any background or bezel. However, when I set the properties to make the button transparent and without bezel, the clickable area of the button is relegated to the text of the title of the button alone. Clicking anywhere else that the button should be (around the title) no longer works. Here is the code I am using. I want to be able to click anywhere in the rect in which I create the button in order to cause a click. FYI I have tried NSSwitchButton without the checkbox image and it is the same thing. Thanks for your help!

for(NSString *theTask in theTasks){
    NSButton *theCheckBox = [[[NSButton alloc] initWithFrame:NSMakeRect(xCoordinate + 25, yCoordinate + ([tasksWindow frame].size.height/2) - 60, [tasksWindow frame].size.width - 40, 25)] autorelease];
    [theCheckBox setButtonType:NSToggleButton];
    [theCheckBox setAction:@selector(taskChecked:)];
    [[theCheckBox cell] setBackgroundColor:[NSColor clearColor]];
    [[theCheckBox cell] setBordered:NO];
    NSAttributedString *theTitle = [[[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", theTask] attributes:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[NSColor whiteColor] forKey:NSForegroundColorAttributeName]] autorelease];
    [theCheckBox setAttributedTitle:theTitle];
    [[tasksWindow contentView] addSubview:theCheckBox];
    yCoordinate -= 20;
}

UPDATE: I’ve been able to confirm that setting the background color to clear is what seems to cause the button to stop responding to clicks within its full boundaries (not the removal of the border).

Answer 1

So to answer my own question, it was because I was overlaying the transparent buttons atop a transparent NSWindow (which refuses mouse events). I simply had to set the window NOT to ignore mouse events and the behavior went away.