NSStatusItem with NSPopover and NSTextField

Question

I have a NSStatusItem that displays a NSPopover which contains a NSTextField but the text field isn't editable although it has been so be so in Xcode. Now this is a known bug and there is apparently a solution someone posted here. I really need to work around this bug.

I'll just quote the answer here for convenience:

The main problem is the way keyboard events works. Although the NSTextField (and all his superviews) receives keyboard events, he doesn't make any action. That happens because the view where the popover is atached, is in a window which can't become a key window. You can't access that window in no way, at least I couldn't. So the solution is override the method canBecomeKeyWindow for every NSWindow in our application using a category.

NSWindow+canBecomeKeyWindow.h
@interface NSWindow (canBecomeKeyWindow)

@end

NSWindow+canBecomeKeyWindow.m
@implementation NSWindow (canBecomeKeyWindow)

//This is to fix a bug with 10.7 where an NSPopover with a text field cannot be edited if its parent window won't become key
//The pragma statements disable the corresponding warning for overriding an already-implemented method
#pragma clang diagnostic push
#pragma clang diagnostic ignored "-Wobjc-protocol-method-implementation"
- (BOOL)canBecomeKeyWindow
{
    return YES;
}
#pragma clang diagnostic pop

@end

That makes the popover fully resposive. If you need another window which must respond NO to canBecomeKeyWindow, you can always make a subclass.

I don't really understand what I am supposed to do. Do I just create these two files NSWindow+canBecomeKeyWindow (.h and .m) and that will do it? Because it doesn't work for me.

I am not sure about this but does this only work if I am actually using an NSWindow that displays the NSPopover? I am not using a NSWindow, how can I get the NSTextField to be editable?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, just add the NSWindow+canBecomeKeyWindow (.h and .m) files to your project, and it should work. I'm using this technique in an app I'm currently developing, and it works fine. Make sure NSWindow+canBecomeKeyWindow.m is listed under "Compile Sources" in your project's Build Phases.

As an aside, I'm having other issues using NSPopover to show a window from an NSStatusItem. I haven't actually tried using it in my project, but this looks promising as an alternative.