Problem tabbing to field when adding and removing view

Question

I have an scope bar containing a NSSearchField. The bar can be shown and hidden using a menu item. I generate this bar by creating a new NSViewController (and loading a new view from the XIB). When the bar is shown, I do a addSubview: to the window's contentView; when the bar is hidden, I do removeFromSuperview to the view within the view controller.

If when I launch the app and the bar is already opened, hitting tab toggles between the main view within the window (a table view) and the search field in the scope bar. If I launch the app and the bar isn't already shown, once I do show the bar I can tab from the table view to the search field, but not the other way.

Once I remove the scope bar for the first time, then show it again, I can no longer tab between the search field and the table view, no matter which view is currently selected.

Is there something I need to be doing besides addSubview: and removeFromSuperview? I can't wrap my head around why this won't work, and especially why I get different behaviors if the bar is shown on launch or not.

Answer 1

You need to set the nextKeyView of both views if you want to control what happens when you hit the tab key.

[yourTableView setNextKeyView:yourSearchField];
[yourSearchField setNextKeyView:yourTableView];

However, you need to be careful because you can break the automatically constructed key-view loop. This article has more detail on how to handle this situation.