Chapter 10. Drawing on the Strength of Core Graphics

Stop me if you've heard this before, but a picture is worth a thousand lines of text.

And sometimes, a few lines of text can be the source of a great picture. It could be a sleek and minimalist icon; it might be the subtly textured border of a UI control; it might even be a dynamically rendered background texture that changes slightly from one window to the next. There really is no end to the opportunities we have to model the appearance of our software's user interface in almost any fashion we choose.

Everyone loves drawing. Except those who, like me, are absolutely rubbish with a pencil. Which makes it all the more encouraging to experience how engaging a UI can look with the application of a few coding skills rather than a paintbrush and canvas (or Photoshop and a graphics tablet).

With Core Graphics, we can reach into the macOS draw routines, gaining a deep level of control over the user interface. We can draw our own buttons, create...