How to set the UIButton state to be highlighted after pressing it

Question

I have a typical requirement wherein I need to keep a button in highlighted state after pressing it. I need to perform a task which should work only when a button is in highlighted state. Actually I am setting a button state to highlighted programatically.

[sender setHighlighted:YES];

And once the button is in highlighted state i need to perform another action.

- (IBAction)changeState: (UIButton*)sender
{   
    if (sender.highlighted == YES)
    {
        [self performSomeAtion:sender];
    }
}

But, to my horror, whenever I press any button, the above condition is becoming true and the action is being performed repeatedly. Is there any way in which i can keep a UIButton's state to be highlighted after pressing it?

EDIT - Actually I need to perform 3 different actions for 3 different states of the button. I am already making use of selected state and normal state. Now, I need to make use of the highlighted state.

Answer 1

[sender setSelected:YES]; 

or you can simulate this effect with two image for your UIButton (notselectedimage.png and selectedimage.png), then keep track button state with a BOOL variable like BOOL buttonCurrentStatus;. Then in .h file:

BOOL buttonCurrentStatus;

and in .m file

// connect this method with Touchupinside function
- (IBAction)changeState:(UIButton*)sender
{
    /* if we have multiple buttons, then we can
       differentiate them by tag value of button.*/
    // But note that you have to set the tag value before use this method.

  if([sender tag] == yourButtontag){

    if (buttonCurrentStatus == NO)
    {
        buttonCurrentStatus = YES;
        [butt setImage: [UIImage imageNamed:@"selectedImage.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
        //[self performSomeAction:sender];
    }
    else
    {
        buttonCurrentStatus = NO;
        [butt setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"notSelectedImage.png"] forState:UIControlStateNormal];
        //[self performSomeAction:sender];
    }   
  }
}

Answer 2

- (void)mybutton:(id)sender
{
    UIButton *button = (UIButton *)sender;
    button.selected = ![button isSelected]; // Important line
    if (button.selected)
    {
        NSLog(@"Selected");
        NSLog(@"%i",button.tag);
    }
    else
    {
        NSLog(@"Un Selected");
        NSLog(@"%i",button.tag);

    }
 }

Answer 3

The highlighted state is used to highlight the button while it is being touched. A touch down event in the button highlights it. You should use the "selected" state instead.

If what you want to do is perform an action after the button is pressed, don't attach your method to the state change event, attach your method to the TouchUpInside event.

Answer 4

I just find a way, so I share it, just in case...

I kept my UIButton and set one image for each state (so you could go up to a 4 states button). I set the UserInteractionEnabled to NO -> This button won't receive any touch. The purpose of this first button is to show a state

I create a second custom UIButton with the same frame than the first one. For this one, none image will be set for the state (it's a fully transparent button). The purpose of this button is to catch the touch event. So I added a target to this button on the TouchUpInside event. And then when the event is fired, I change the state of the first button to Disabled, Highlighted, Selected, or none of these state (= Default state).

Everything is working like a charm!

Answer 5

The way you describe it, you'd be better off subclassing UIView to create your own three-state button.

Actually, you should even implement your own multistate buttonView, and manage the state it's in internally via an array of PNG for the looks and an array of states to know how many times it's been pressed.

Answer 6

Use [sender setSelected: YES];, I think it will be useful to you.

Answer 7

For iOS 7 only: you should consider setting the image renderMode to UIImageRenderingModeAlwaysTemplate. You can then use the tintColor to represent various states.

see How to apply a tintColor to a UIImage? and

see Tint a UIView with all its subviews

Answer 8

The solution is tricky but it's possible.

The problem is that you tried to change the highlighted status in the button action method, which I suppose makes a clean up or check process at the end of the action and switch the highlighted status. When you try to debug it you get the highlighted = 1 but it will change at the end.

Strange but your "3 statuses button" is sometimes useful, when you'd like to keep a button in "highlighted" mode like the "selected" mode to get different action depending on the 3 statuses. The only problem that you couldn't analyze this or switch it to highlighted mode in the button action method as this will switch to highlighted mode immediately as the user push it AND switch it back at the end.

The solution is using a dispatch.

dispatch_time_t popTime = dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, 0.1 * NSEC_PER_SEC);
dispatch_after(popTime, dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^(void){
        [theButton setHighlighted:YES];
});

This will do the trick and you could use the 3 statuses.

Answer 9

According to apple, UIButton has a property of imageView:

Although this property is read-only, its own properties are read/write. Use these properties to configure the appearance and behavior of the button’s view

This means that you can set in the IB (in the storyboard) a picture for this button and set the highlighted picture:

1. Open the Attribute inspector.
2. Under Button section, choose an image.
3. In the same section, change the State Config to Highlighted. Notice the image you chose under default is now gone and now you can set a new picture for the Highlighted.
4. Now you have a button with 2 state config and all you have to do during runtime to change the button.highlighted = true. Also, check the UIControl under Configuring the Control’s Attributes for more states.

You can also do it programatically as follows:

Swift (and almost the same in Objective-C):

// Setting the highlighted image
self.someButton.imageView?.highlightedImage = UIImage(named: "imageNameFromImageAssest")
// someButton will now some the highlighted image and NOT the image set in the IB
self.someButton.imageView?.highlighted = true

Answer 10

UIButton *btn_tmp=sender;
    if(!(btn_tmp.selected))
    {
[btn_temp setHighlighted:YES];

}