How can I display the spinning NSProgressIndicator in a different color?

Question

I am using a "spinner" NSProgressIndicator in my cocoa app:

I would like to display it in a different color so that it will show up well on a dark background:

How would I go about doing this? My last resort would be to write my own custom NSView subclass that renders a custom animation, but I'm not even sure where to start on that front. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

This is what I've done:

    #import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

    ...

    CIFilter *lighten = [CIFilter filterWithName:@"CIColorControls"];
    [lighten setDefaults];
    [lighten setValue:@1 forKey:@"inputBrightness"];
    [self.indicator setContentFilters:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:lighten, nil]];

Answer 2

I actually have implemented clones of the spinning NSProgressIndicator that might suit your needs. They can be drawn at any size and in any color. One is a subclass of NSView, which can be used on OS X 10.4, and the other is a subclass of CALayer, which can be used in a CoreAnimation-based project. The code is on github (both the NSView-based version and the CoreAnimation-based version), and there is a post with some screenshots on my blog.

Answer 3

Not sure if this would work correctly with NSProgressIndicator, but you might try using a Core Image filter to invert the display of the progress indicator view. You would have to make the view layer backed, and then add a CIFilter to its layer's filters. You may be able to do this all in the effects inspector in Interface Builder, otherwise you could also just do it in code.

Answer 4

While I'm sure that Kelan's code worked a while ago, it's difficult to update. I ended up going with ITProgressIndicator, and it took about 2 minutes to get working using Xcode 6 (Beta 1) and Yosemite (Beta 2).