If a different background color will suffice as a highlight, you could simply use an NSBox as the root item for you collection item view.
Fill the NSBox with the highlight color of your choice.
Set the NSBox to Custom so the fill will work.
Set the NSBox to transparent.
Bind the transparency attribute of the NSBox to the selected attribute of File Owner(Collection Item)
Set the value transformer for the transparent binding to NSNegateBoolean.
I tried to attach Interface builder screenshots but I was rejected bcos I’m a newbie 🙁