Why is this NSMenuItem getting disabled when the window loses focus?

Question

I am programmatically creating an NSMenu with a NSMenuItem. When the window of the application is active, the NSMenuItem is enabled:

However, as soon as the window loses focus the menu item becomes disabled:

Here's how I am creating the NSMenu:

- (void)_quit
{
  [[NSApplication sharedApplication] terminate:nil];
}

- (NSMenu *)_setupMenu
{
  NSMenu *statusMenu = [[NSMenu alloc] initWithTitle:@"Demo"];
  NSMenuItem *quit = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Quit" action:@selector(_quit) keyEquivalent:@""];

  [statusMenu addItem:quit];

  return statusMenu;
}

What is causing this issue? And how do I go about making it enabled regardless of whether the application is in focus or not?

Answer 1

Because menu items are enabled based on the responder chain.

In your case, you can use the terminate: selector instead of your own.
As this is declared in the NSApplication class, which is also part of the responder chain, the item will then be always active.

NSMenuItem *quit = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Quit" action:@selector(terminate:) keyEquivalent:@""];

More on this here: Cocoa Event Handling Guide