Detect the difference between left/right clicks on the MenuBarExtra item

[leonschrijvers]

Hi,

Thanks for your awesome work! I have a question which may be out of scope of this project, but because in-depth information related to MenuBarExtra is still hard to find, I'm giving it a shot :)

Would it be possible to detect the difference between left and right clicks on the MenuBarExtra item? I have used this in the past in applications that used NSStatusBar with a statusItem, see here for some background information on how to get that to work: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59635971/show-nsmenu-only-on-nsstatusbarbutton-right-click

I was hoping that this could also be done with MenuBarExtra natively-ish, without having to fallback on the AppDelegate/NSStatusBar approach. What's your take on this? Thanks!

[orchetect]

MenuBarExtra is managing that and only connects left (primary) click.

From my experience thus far, it may be possible by accessing the NSStatusItem and manipulating it. But there was a reason I didn’t outwardly expose the NSStatusItem in this library. MenuBarExtra operates under the assumption that it owns and manages the status item. Which means we can’t anticipate what Apple may do in future iterations of SwiftUI. So a hacky solution that works now could break or crash in the future.

It’s a balancing act. Apple needs to add 1st-party support for these features ideally (including presentation binding, left/right mouse differentiation, etc.). So submitting radars for feature requests to Apple and having patience may produce some results eventually. This library is just meant to act as a bridge to coax more functionality out of MenuBarExtra because, ever the optimist, I want to adopt new technologies and show my support for them.

[orchetect]

Interesting, thanks so much for the detailed info.

Using addSubview on the button means that the existing underlying view and button is still there (which in this case is good since it interferes the least with MenuBarExtra's own interaction with the view). That is probably the safest way to go to avoid potential unknowns with how Apple may alter MBE's behavior in future.

My gut tells me that the mouseDown override shouldn't be used at all in the custom view. That view should only be for right-click handling. The left click is already handled by MenuBarExtra itself. I'd consider this hack as purely a way to add right-click functionality.

Also, this is a better approach to the right-click override:

override func rightMouseDown(with event: NSEvent) {
    if let onRightMouseDown {
        onRightMouseDown()
    } else {
        super.rightMouseDown(with: event)
    }
}

You don't want to pass the event to super if you're handling it. Otherwise you have both your handler and super's handler being called which is not what you want.

[leonschrijvers]

Thanks for the improved implementation, that's a lot cleaner.

Your explanation makes a lot of sense, and I can see that only overriding rightMouseDown is the safest approach. However for the use case I am interested in, I want to intercept the left click and run some own code and open the MBE with the right click. For sake of completeness, the final code to make that happen:

@main
struct MenuBarTestApp: App {
    @State var isStatusMenuPresented: Bool = false
        
    var body: some Scene {
        MenuBarExtra("MyApp Menu", systemImage: "0.circle.fill") {
            ContentView()
        }
        .menuBarExtraAccess(isPresented: $isStatusMenuPresented) { statusItem in
            if let button = statusItem.button {
                let mouseHandlerView = MouseHandlerView(frame: button.frame)
                
                mouseHandlerView.onMouseDown = {
                    print("leftMouseDown")
                }
                                
                button.addSubview(mouseHandlerView)
            }
        }
    }
}

class MouseHandlerView: NSView {
    var onRightMouseDown: (() -> Void)? = nil
    var onMouseDown: (() -> Void)? = nil

    override func rightMouseDown(with event: NSEvent) {
        if let onRightMouseDown {
            onRightMouseDown()
        } else {
            super.rightMouseDown(with: event)
        }
    }
    
    override func mouseDown(with event: NSEvent) {
        if let onMouseDown {
            onMouseDown()
        } else {
            super.mouseDown(with: event)
        }
    }
}

Thanks for your help!

[orchetect]

Gotcha 👍 Great that it seems to be working.

I'm on the fence about adding this as a library feature, as bit by bit we're kind of rewriting MenuBarExtra which is a slippery slope.

It may be useful as a demo project at least. If you feel like throwing one together (maybe using the latest platform demo as a template and gut it first) and PR it you're welcome to, but no pressure. I can throw it together later too.

[leonschrijvers]

Sure, I can see if I can throw something together. Is it an idea to rename the Demo folder to Demos and create a subfolder for the current Demo, so that Demos can host multiple demo projects?

[orchetect]

Right, yes. I was thinking of my MacControlCenterUI library which already had multiple demos.