A Guide to NSButton Styles, 2022
Kuba Suder (tweet):
It was hard to figure out the purpose and intended use of each kind of button, and there were hardly any clues inside Xcode itself. So I decided to do some research to find some tips about what each button is for. I put together information I found in the old-style Apple docs and the Human Interface Guidelines, I also looked through Apple’s system apps to see which buttons are used in what contexts, and I even peeked inside some apps using Interface Inspector.
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In this second edition, I’ve replaced all old screenshots with new ones in Retina quality (I even installed a Mavericks VM in VirtualBox to get 2x pictures from there!), and I added a new set for Big Sur and Monterey. In some cases there are even separate versions for Yosemite and Catalina, because I’ve noticed that a few things were tweaked during that macOS era. I also added new content about new kinds of buttons and features introduced in recent years, clarified and expanded a lot of descriptions, and added some additional examples. I also went through Apple’s own apps and looked inside some of them again, this time using Xcode view debugger with SIP turned off (thanks to Tim Oliver for the tip!).
Previously:
