NSTextField controlTextDidEndEditing: called while being edited (inside an NSOutlineView) - cocoa

Question

In my NSOutlineView, I have a NSTextField inside a NSTableCellView. I am listening for the controlTextDidEndEditing: notification to happen when the user finishes the editing. However, in my case, this notification is being fired even while the user is in the middle of typing, or takes even a second-long pause in typing. This seems bizarre. I tested a NSTextField in the same view, but outside of the NSOutlineView, and it doesn't behave this way; it only calls controlTextDidEndEditing: if the user pressed the Tab or Enter keys (as expected).
Is there something I can do to prevent the NSTextField from sending controlTextDidEndEditing: unless a Enter or Tab key is pressed?

Answer 1

Found a solution for this:
- (void)controlTextDidEndEditing:(NSNotification *) notification {
// to prevent NSOutlineView from calling controlTextDidEndEditing by itself
if ([notification.userInfo[#"NSTextMovement"] unsignedIntegerValue]) {
....

Answer 2

It's an old question, but for reference, I ran into a similar problem where controlTextDidEndEditing: was called at the beginning of the editing session.
My workaround is to check if the text field still has the focus (i.e. cursor):
func controlTextDidEndEditing(_ obj: Notification) {
guard
let textField = obj.object as? NSTextField,
!textField.isFocused
else {
return
}
...
}
public extension NSTextField
{
public var isFocused:Bool {
if
window?.firstResponder is NSTextView,
let fieldEditor = window?.fieldEditor(false, for: nil),
let delegate = fieldEditor.delegate as? NSTextField,
self == delegate
{
return true
}
return false
}
}
Note to self:
I ran into this problem when adding a new item to NSOutlineView and making it editable with NSOutlineView.editColumn(row:,with:,select).
controlTextDidEndEditing() would be called right away at the start of the editing session.
It turns out it was a first responder/animation race condition. I used a NSTableView.AnimationOptions.slideDown animation when inserting the row and made the row editable afterwards.
The problem here is that the row is made editable while it is still animating. When the animation finishes, the first responder changes to the window and back to the text field, which causes controlTextDidEndEditing() to be called.
outlineView.beginUpdates()
outlineView.insertItems(at: IndexSet(integer:atIndex),
inParent: intoParent == rootItem ? nil : intoParent,
withAnimation: .slideDown) // Animating!
outlineView.endUpdates()
// Problem: the animation above won't have finished leading to first responder issues.
self.outlineView.editColumn(0, row: insertedRowIndex, with: nil, select: true)
Solution 1:
Don't use an animation when inserting the row.
Solution 2:
Wrap beginUpdates/endUpdates into an NSAnimationContext group, add a completion handler to only start editing once the animation finished.
Debugging tips:
Observe changes to firstResponder in your window controller
Put a breakpoint in controlTextDidEndEditing() and take a very close look at the stack trace to see what is causing it to be called. What gave it away in my case were references to animation calls.
To reproduce, wrap beginUpdates/endUpdates in an NSAnimationContext and increase the animation duration to a few seconds.