NSMenuItem and bare esc key equiv.

Question

I'm trying to bind a bare esc key press to an NSMenuItem that toggles full screen (currently just a stub function). Manually selecting the menu item sends the desired IBAction. When I set the NSMenuItem's Key Equiv. in Interface Builder to an arbitrary bare key (eg. w) that key command sends the desired IBAction. When I set the Key Equiv. to command + esc, that key command sends the desired IBAction. But a bare esc key press is ignored.

I'm assuming the esc key is special-cased. Other applications (eg. Bannister's various emulators) are able to achieve this, any idea how?

Answer 1

I'm no Objective-C veteran, so apologies if I'm misunderstanding the question. But have you tried moving up the responder chain and grabbing the keyDown event in NSWindow? Something like:

- (void)keyDown: (NSEvent *) event {
   if ([event keyCode] == 53) {
        NSLog(@"Esc. pressed");
     }
}

Of course, this solution will require that you subclass NSWindow.

Answer 2

Please have a look at http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGUserInput/XHIGUserInput.html “… The Esc (Escape) key basically means “let me out of here.” It has specific meanings in certain contexts. The user can press Esc in the following situations: …”

Greetings