Making a circular NSSlide look and behave like in GarageBand

Question

I am new to drawing with Cocoa, and I am making some software which will have sliders similar to these found in GarageBand:

GB Sliders http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/2668/schermafbeelding2010061r.png

These look beautiful and can be controld by moving the mouse up and down.

Can you help me with customizing NSSliders by subclassing them, so I can make them look and behave exactly as in GarageBand? Thanks.

---

I have one image for the knob which should be rotated as they do not need to be in 3D .

Answer 1

The simplest way is to create a NSView subclass that handles both the mouse management and the drawing.

There is a sample code that can help you to start named "TLayer". It is part of the Examples of the XCode 3.1.4. It contains a circular custom view that controls the offset and the radius of the shadow drawn for layers. It is easy to understand and easy to extend.

Note: as it does not seems to be available on the Apple website, so I have pasted the sources below.

---

ShadowOffsetView.h

#import <AppKit/AppKit.h>

extern NSString *ShadowOffsetChanged;

@interface ShadowOffsetView : NSView
{
    CGSize _offset;
    float _scale;
}

- (float)scale;
- (void)setScale:(float)scale;

- (CGSize)offset;
- (void)setOffset:(CGSize)offset;

@end

---

ShadowOffsetView.m

#import "ShadowOffsetView.h"

NSString *ShadowOffsetChanged = @"ShadowOffsetChanged";

@interface ShadowOffsetView (Internal)
- (NSCell *)cell;
@end

@implementation ShadowOffsetView

- (id)initWithFrame:(NSRect)frame
{
    self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
    if (self == nil)
    return nil;

    _offset = CGSizeZero;

    return self;
}

- (void)dealloc
{
    [super dealloc];
}

- (float)scale
{
    return _scale;
}

- (void)setScale:(float)scale
{
    _scale = scale;
}

- (CGSize)offset
{
    return CGSizeMake(_offset.width * _scale, _offset.height * _scale);
}

- (void)setOffset:(CGSize)offset
{
    offset = CGSizeMake(offset.width / _scale, offset.height / _scale);
    if (!CGSizeEqualToSize(_offset, offset)) {
    _offset = offset;
    [self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
    }
}

- (BOOL)isOpaque
{
    return NO;
}

- (void)setOffsetFromPoint:(NSPoint)point
{
    float radius;
    CGSize offset;
    NSRect bounds;
    
    bounds = [self bounds];
    offset.width = (point.x - NSMidX(bounds)) / (NSWidth(bounds) / 2);
    offset.height = (point.y - NSMidY(bounds)) / (NSHeight(bounds) / 2);
    radius = sqrt(offset.width * offset.width + offset.height * offset.height);
    if (radius > 1) {
    offset.width /= radius;
    offset.height /= radius;
    }
    if (!CGSizeEqualToSize(_offset, offset)) {
    _offset = offset;
    [self setNeedsDisplay:YES];
    [(NSNotificationCenter *)[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter]
        postNotificationName:ShadowOffsetChanged object:self];
    }
}

- (void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)event
{
    NSPoint point;

    point = [self convertPoint:[event locationInWindow] fromView:nil];
    [self setOffsetFromPoint:point];
}

- (void)mouseDragged:(NSEvent *)event
{
    NSPoint point;

    point = [self convertPoint:[event locationInWindow] fromView:nil];
    [self setOffsetFromPoint:point];
}

- (void)drawRect:(NSRect)rect
{
    NSRect bounds;
    CGContextRef context;
    float x, y, w, h, r;

    bounds = [self bounds];
    x = NSMinX(bounds);
    y = NSMinY(bounds);
    w = NSWidth(bounds);
    h = NSHeight(bounds);
    r = MIN(w / 2, h / 2);
    
    context = [[NSGraphicsContext currentContext] graphicsPort];

    CGContextTranslateCTM(context, x + w/2, y + h/2);

    CGContextAddArc(context, 0, 0, r, 0, 2*M_PI, true);
    CGContextClip(context);

    CGContextSetGrayFillColor(context, 0.910, 1);
    CGContextFillRect(context, CGRectMake(-w/2, -h/2, w, h));

    CGContextAddArc(context, 0, 0, r, 0, 2*M_PI, true);
    CGContextSetGrayStrokeColor(context, 0.616, 1);
    CGContextStrokePath(context);

    CGContextAddArc(context, 0, -2, r, 0, 2*M_PI, true);
    CGContextSetGrayStrokeColor(context, 0.784, 1);
    CGContextStrokePath(context);

    CGContextMoveToPoint(context, 0, 0);
    CGContextAddLineToPoint(context, r * _offset.width, r * _offset.height);

    CGContextSetLineWidth(context, 2);
    CGContextSetGrayStrokeColor(context, 0.33, 1);
    CGContextStrokePath(context);
}

@end

Answer 2

Well, for the actual drawing you'd either have to have images for each rotation angle of the knob (easier to implement) and then just draw the proper one.

(While for a real realistic 3d look—even if possible—programmatic drawing wouldn't be worth its time, I guess.)

Or draw the knob by code. This article should give you an idea I think: http://katidev.com/blog/2008/03/07/how-to-create-a-custom-control-with-nsview/ (For both, the mouse event handling and basic NSBezerPath drawing of circular and rotating knob-like elements)