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

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