Question

I have a simple application which has an NSSearchField and I want to know if the user presses, for example, an arrow key. I don’t want to subclass, because I want to modify the values of the IBOutlets in my aplication, and I can’t do that in a subclass.

EDIT

The keyUp: method that I override in my NSSearchField subclass is:

-(void)keyUp:(NSEvent*)event
{
    if ([event keyCode]==36){
    customers* c= [[customers alloc] init];//customers is the class where i have my IBOulets and my methods
    [[self window] selectKeyViewFollowingView:self];// change the first responder
    [c searcht:[self stringValue]];//here i want to call a method to make a query and change the stringValues of some IBOulets
    }
}

Answer 1

Assign your controller as the delegate of your searchfield and implement the method:

- (BOOL)control:(NSControl *)control textView:(NSTextView *)textView doCommandBySelector:(SEL)command

You should then be able to receive simple NSResponder selectors such as moveDown:, moveUp:, moveLeft:, moveRight: which correspond to the arrow keys.