Select next NSTextField with Tab key in Swift - swift

Question

Is there a way to change the responder or select another textfield by pressing tab on the keyboard, in Swift?
Notes:
It's for a fill in the blank type application.
My VC creates a list of Words [Word], and each of those words has its own WordView - word.wordView. The WordView is what is displayed. WordView is a child of NSTextField.
I tried to override keydown but it doesn't allow me to type anything in the text view.

Answer 1

You have to connect your textField nextKeyView to the next textField through the IB or programmatically:
textField1.nextKeyView = textField2

Answer 2

Assuming you want to go from textView1 to textView2. First set the delegate:
self.textView1.delegate = self
Then implement the delegate method:
func textView(textView: NSTextView, doCommandBySelector commandSelector: Selector) -> Bool {
if commandSelector == "insertTab:" && textView == self.textView1 {
self.window.makeFirstResponder(self.textView2)
return true
}
return false
}

Answer 3

If you want some control over how your field tabs or moves with arrow keys between fields in Swift, you can add this to your delegate along with some move meaningful code to do the actual moving like move next by finding the control on the superview visibly displayed below or just to the right of the control and can accept focus.
public func control(_ control: NSControl, textView: NSTextView, doCommandBy commandSelector: Selector) -> Bool {
switch commandSelector {
case #selector(NSResponder.insertTab(_:)), #selector(NSResponder.moveDown(_:)):
// Move to the next field
Swift.print("Move next")
return true
case #selector(NSResponder.moveUp(_:)):
// Move to the previous field
Swift.print("Move previous")
return true
default:
return false
}
return false // I didn't do anything
}

Answer 4

I had the same or a similar problem, in that I wanted to use an NSTextView field, to allow multiple lines of text to be entered, but it was the sort of field where entering a tab character would make no sense. I found an easy fix for this: NSTextView has an instance property of isFieldEditor, which is set to false by default; simply set this to true, and tabs will now skip to the next field.