How to force the cursor to be an “arrowCursor” when it hovers a NSButton that is inside a NSTextView?

Question

Okay, here is the problem:
I have a NSTextView and I add my custom NSButton using:

[_textView addSubview:button];

Then, inside my NSButton subclass, I have (along with the NSTrackingArea stuff):

- (void)mouseEntered:(NSEvent *)event{
     [[NSCursor arrowCursor] set];
}

- (void)mouseExited:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
     [[NSCursor arrowCursor] set];
}

- (void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
     [[NSCursor arrowCursor] set];
}

- (void)mouseUp:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
     [[NSCursor arrowCursor] set];
}

But when I hover it, the cursor remains the same IBeamCursor (because it's a NSTextView ). Only when I press the button, the cursor gets updated. And then, when I move the mouse, still inside the button, the cursor goes back to the IBeamCursor .

Any ideas on how to do this? Thank you!

Answer 1

Adding a tracking area that only tracks enter/exit events seems to be not enough for NSTextView subviews. Somehow the textview always wins and sets it's IBeamCursor .

You can try to always enable tracking for mouse move events ( NSTrackingMouseMoved ) when adding the tracking area in your NSButton subclass:

#import "SSWHoverButton.h"

@interface SSWHoverButton()
{
    NSTrackingArea* trackingArea;
}

@end

@implementation SSWHoverButton

- (void)mouseMoved:(NSEvent*)theEvent
{
    [[NSCursor arrowCursor] set];
}

- (void)updateTrackingAreas
{
    if(trackingArea != nil)
    {
        [self removeTrackingArea:trackingArea];
    }
    NSTrackingAreaOptions opts = (NSTrackingMouseMoved|NSTrackingActiveAlways);
    trackingArea = [[NSTrackingArea alloc] initWithRect:[self bounds]
                                                 options:opts
                                                   owner:self
                                                userInfo:nil];
    [self addTrackingArea:trackingArea];
}

- (void)dealloc
{
    [self removeTrackingArea:trackingArea];
}

@end

Answer 2

Swift 5 variant:

import Cocoa

class InsideTextButton: NSButton {

    var trackingArea: NSTrackingArea?

    override func mouseMoved(with event: NSEvent) {
        NSCursor.arrow.set()
    }

    override func updateTrackingAreas() {
        if let area = trackingArea {
            removeTrackingArea(area)
        }

        trackingArea = NSTrackingArea(rect: self.bounds, options: [.mouseMoved, .activeAlways], owner: self, userInfo: nil)

        if let area = trackingArea {
            addTrackingArea(area)
        }
    }

    deinit {
        if let area = trackingArea {
            removeTrackingArea(area)
        }
    }
}