Can I observe an optional value in swift? If not, how might I go about attempting to observe a change? - swift

Question

I'm trying to observe a change to the selection of an NSPopUpButton in Swift 4. In my view controller's viewDidLoad() I've set up the observation token to observe the selectedItem property of the NSPopUpButton
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
observation = observe(\.myPopUpButton.selectedItem) {
objectToObserve, change in
if change.kind == NSKeyValueObservedChange.Kind.setting {
// code to execute goes here
}
}
I set a breakpoint on the line where observation is set to determine that the token is being configured with the correct key path. I also set a break inside the closure to see when it is executed. When I change the selection of the NSPopUpButton, the closure does not execute.
selectedItem is of type, NSMenuItem?, so my suspicion is that I can't set an observation on an optional property. But I can't find anything in Apple's documentation that states whether or not that is the case and I'm not sure how I would go about verifying it for myself.
So I have sort of a primary question along w/ some followups:
Can I observe an optional property in Swift 4.1?
If so, how can I troubleshoot this, what am I doing wrong?
If not, how can I go about trying to monitor the state of the NSPopUpButton?
Troubleshoots that I've already tried...
added #objc dynamic to the my myPopUpButton declaration

Answer 1

Many properties of many AppKit objects are not KVO-compliant. Unless the documentation specifically says the property is compliant, you should assume it's not compliant. NSPopUpButton's selectedItem property is non-compliant.
The easiest way to be notified that the pop-up button's selected item changed is to set the button's target and action:
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
myPopUpButton.target = self
myPopUpButton.action = #selector(popUpButtonDidFire(_:))
}
#IBAction private func popUpButtonDidFire(_ sender: Any) {
// code to execute goes here
}
Note that if you're creating the pop-up button in a storyboard or xib, you can wire it to the popUpButtonDidFire method by control-dragging from the pop-up button to the view controller.

Answer 2

As mentioned in the comments in macOS Cocoa Bindings and Swift's property observers are a very powerful way to observe values, even in prior Swift versions. An outlet is not needed.
Create a property and use the didSet observer
#objc dynamic var selectedObject : MyObject? {
didSet {
}
}
In Interface Builder in Bindings Inspector bind Selected Object to the target controller Model Key Path > selectedObject.
MyObject is the type of the represented object of the menu item. If nothing is selected selectedObject is nil. You can bind also Selected Index, Selected Tag or Selected Value (but not simultaneously).