[Cocoa] NSImage transparency

Question

I'm trying to set a custom drag icon for use in an NSTableView. Everything seems to work but I've run into a problem due to my inexperience with Quartz.

- (NSImage *)dragImageForRowsWithIndexes:(NSIndexSet *)dragRows tableColumns:(NSArray *)tableColumns event:(NSEvent *)dragEvent offset:(NSPointPointer)dragImageOffset
{
 NSImage *dragImage = [NSImage imageNamed:@"icon.png"];
 NSString *count = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [dragRows count]];

 [dragImage lockFocus]; 
 [dragImage compositeToPoint:NSZeroPoint fromRect:NSZeroRect operation:NSCompositeSourceOver fraction:0.5];
 [count drawAtPoint:NSZeroPoint withAttributes:nil];

 [dragImage unlockFocus];
 return dragImage;
}

Essentially what I'm looking to do is render my icon.png file with 50% opacity along with an NSString which shows the number of rows currently being dragged. The issue I'm seeing is that my NSString renders with a low opacity, but not my icon.

Answer 1

The issue is that you’re drawing your icon on top of itself. What you probably want is something like this:

- (NSImage *)dragImageForRowsWithIndexes:(NSIndexSet *)dragRows tableColumns:(NSArray *)tableColumns event:(NSEvent *)dragEvent offset:(NSPointPointer)dragImageOffset
{
 NSImage *icon = [NSImage imageNamed:@"icon.png"];
 NSString *count = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%lu", [dragRows count]];

 NSImage *dragImage = [[[NSImage alloc] initWithSize:[icon size]] autorelease];

 [dragImage lockFocus]; 
 [icon compositeToPoint:NSZeroPoint fromRect:NSZeroRect operation:NSCompositeSourceOver fraction:0.5];
 [count drawAtPoint:NSZeroPoint withAttributes:nil];

 [dragImage unlockFocus];
 return dragImage;
}