Change UIButton border color on highlight

JohnWickham picture JohnWickham · Aug 13, 2012 · Viewed 28.8k times · Source

I've got a simple custom UIButton, to which I added:

button.layer.bordercolor = [[UIColor blueColor]CGColor];

However, I want to change the .bordercolor when the button is highlighted. I tried adding an action to the button's touchDown action that changes the .bordercolor to red, but when the user lifts their finger, it stays red rather than returning to blue. Any ideas?

Answer

Mick MacCallum picture Mick MacCallum · Aug 13, 2012

You were on the right track. Check the code below, it elaborates on this, but what you'll want to do is link selectors to different control events on your button. One for touchDown to change the shadow to red, and another for touchUpInside to change the shadow back when you lift your finger.

Additionally, I see you've asked several questions on Stack Overflow and have yet to mark any as the correct answer. To continue to receive help on this website, you will need to start marking correct answers to your questions.

[myButton addTarget:self action:@selector(highlightBorder) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchDown];
[myButton addTarget:self action:@selector(unhighlightBorder) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];


- (void)highlightBorder
{
    myButton.layer.borderColor = [[UIColor redColor]CGColor];
}

- (void)unhighlightBorder
{
    myButton.layer.borderColor = [[UIColor blueColor]CGColor];
    //additional code for an action when the button is released can go here.
}

NOTE: Other options for UIControlEvents include:

enum {
   UIControlEventTouchDown           = 1 <<  0,
   UIControlEventTouchDownRepeat     = 1 <<  1,
   UIControlEventTouchDragInside     = 1 <<  2,
   UIControlEventTouchDragOutside    = 1 <<  3,
   UIControlEventTouchDragEnter      = 1 <<  4,
   UIControlEventTouchDragExit       = 1 <<  5,
   UIControlEventTouchUpInside       = 1 <<  6,
   UIControlEventTouchUpOutside      = 1 <<  7,
   UIControlEventTouchCancel         = 1 <<  8,

   UIControlEventValueChanged        = 1 << 12,

   UIControlEventEditingDidBegin     = 1 << 16,
   UIControlEventEditingChanged      = 1 << 17,
   UIControlEventEditingDidEnd       = 1 << 18,
   UIControlEventEditingDidEndOnExit = 1 << 19,

   UIControlEventAllTouchEvents      = 0x00000FFF,
   UIControlEventAllEditingEvents    = 0x000F0000,
   UIControlEventApplicationReserved = 0x0F000000,
   UIControlEventSystemReserved      = 0xF0000000,
   UIControlEventAllEvents           = 0xFFFFFFFF
};