NSButton subview within an NSTextField, why is my button not appearing?

Question

Am trying to add an NSButton image to the far right of an NSTextField. Specifically it is going to be a button which launches an NSPopover (graphical date picker calendar). Right now all I'm trying to do is get the image button on the far right of my NSTextField.

I have subclassed NSTextField like this and here is my code:

@implementation myDateTextField {

- (void) awakeFromNib {
   // my image button icon is 16px by 16px
   NSRect buttonFrame = NSMakeRect(0.0f,0.0f, 16.0f, 16.0f);
   NSButton *popoverButton = [[NSButton alloc] initWithFrame: buttonFrame];

   popoverButton.buttonType = NSMomentaryChangeButton;
   popoverButton.bezelStyle = NSInlineBezelStyle;
   popoverButton.bordered = NO;
   popoverButton.imagePosition = NSImageOnly;
   [popoverButton setImage:[NSImage imageNamed:@"calendar_button.png"]];
   [popoverButton.cell setHighlightsBy:NSContentsCellMask];

   [self addSubview:popoverButton];
   NSLog(@"awakeFromNib loaded.");
}

}

Within Interface Builder I have set the class my my NSTextField to be myDateTextField and I can confirm that awakeFromNib is being called when my window loads. My problem is the button is not appearing at all!

Any words of advice as to what I may be doing wrong? I realize the location of the button probably will be off within the text field but right now all I'm trying to do is get it to appear.

RishiG RishiG · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-18T17:43:44

There's a typo in your code here (NSRect =, get rid of the "="). Otherwise I ran this code and it worked fine as long as I had an actual image named "calendar_button.png" which fits in the space. Without the image, the code still runs but nothing shows up.

Try testing that the image is actually found:

NSImage *calImage = [NSImage imageNamed:@"calendar_button.png"];
if(calImage == nil){
    NSLog(@"Failed to find calendar image!");
}
[popoverButton setImage:calImage];

You can also try setting popoverButton.bordered to YES to see where the button will appear.

NSButton subview within an NSTextField, why is my button not appearing?

1 Answers