As part of my hidden UIWidget stuff, the widget has a few buttons on it that I set the isEnabled flag to false when appropriate.  This had the effect of the button changing over time to a dark gray color when it appears on screen.

I didn’t want the color to transition, I wanted it to start gray when it appeared.  So I added the following lines:

float oldDur = button.duration;
button.duration = 0;
button.isEnabled = false;
button.duration = oldDur;

That did the trick – button appeared gray and didn’t transition.