Create UIButton LIKE control with custom drawRect code

Question

I would like to create a custom shape that acts like a UIButton. I need it to send touchUpInside to a target like a button however I want to use drawRect to change the button appearance when the buttons state changes.

I've read a lot of conflicting things on the net about not subclassing UIButton or UIControl.

1. So what it the acceptable way to do this?

2. Also if the answer is UIControl then how do you implement touchUpInside using the 'beginTracking' methods?

3. Why can't we subclass UIButton. I've read things about it been a class cluster and not using UIButtonTypeCustom because it will not work but why is this?

I hope someone could shed some light on this or point me to some good reading.

Thank you.

Answer 1

I had this same sort of issue when I wanted to do a custom button. I also have read many posts that don't seem to hit on the right way to subclass UIButton. In your case, I would recommend subclassing UIButton and override the setHighlighted: method for adjusting the button on selection. I have a subclass of UIButton called LDGradientButton that can be found at lightdesign/LDGradientButton. Feel free to take a look at the drawing code. In my case, I was using CALayers, but if I was doing it over, I'd probably use CoreGraphics.