There are several ways in which we can visually inform the user that the button is interactive when they move their mouse over it. The simplest way is to add a Color Tint that will appear when the mouse is over the button – this is the default Transition. With Button selected in the Hierarchy window, choose a tint color (for example, red), for the Highlighted Color property of the Button (Script) component in the Inspector window:
Another form of visual Transition to inform the user of an active button is Sprite Swap. In this case, the properties of different images for Targeted/Highlighted/Pressed/Disabled are available in the Inspector window. The default Targeted Graphic is the built-in Unity Button (Image) – this is the gray rounded rectangle default when GameObject buttons are created. Dragging in a very different-looking image for the Highlighted sprite is an effective alternative to setting a Color Tint:
We have provided a rainbow.png image with the project for this recipe that can be used for the Button mouseover's Highlighted sprite. You will need to ensure this image asset has its Texture Type set to Sprite (2D and UI) in the Inspector window. The preceding screenshot shows the button with this rainbow background image.
