Cocoa button rollovers with mouseEntered: and mouseExited:?

Question

In hopes of creating a rollover effect on a button, I created a subclass of NSButton called Button.

Button.h:

#import <AppKit/AppKit.h>

@interface Button : NSButton {
}

- (void)mouseEntered:(NSEvent *)theEvent;
- (void)mouseExited:(NSEvent *)theEvent;
- (void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)ev;
- (void)mouseUp:(NSEvent *)theEvent;

@end

Button.m: #import "Button.h"

@implementation Button

- (id)initWithFrame:(NSRect)frameRect  {
    self = [super initWithFrame:frameRect];
    if(self != nil) {
    NSLog(@"btn init");
}
    return self;
}


- (void)mouseEntered:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
    NSLog(@"mouseEntered");
    [self setImage:[NSImage imageNamed:@"lockIcon_2.png"]];
    [self setNeedsDisplay];
}
- (void)mouseExited:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
    [self setImage:[NSImage imageNamed:@"lockIcon_1.png"]];
    NSLog(@"mouseExited");  
    [self setNeedsDisplay];
}

- (void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)ev {
    NSLog(@"mouseDown!");
}

- (void)mouseUp:(NSEvent *)ev {
    NSLog(@"mouseUp!");
}

@end

With the code above, every time I click on a button I see "mouseDown" in the logs, but I don't see "mouseEntered" nor "mouseExited" (and of course don't see the image change)?? Sadly, I know I'm missing something obvious, but I'm just not seeing it... ???

Answer 1

While setting up a tracking area is definitely a way to do this, NSButton/NSButtonCell already have this functionality built in.

Check out NSButton's showsBorderOnlyWhileMouseInside, and the corresponding NSButtonCell's mouseEntered and mouseExited. It is documented here:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsbuttoncell/1527903-showsborderonlywhilemouseinside

Depending on your use-case, this may or may not work. For me, I was subclassing NSButtonCell anyways, so it was perfect. One thing to be aware of is it also affects calls to drawBezel.