nativeEvent function doesn't get called on Mac

on Mac when an user presses "Ctrl + left click", applications usually interpret it as "right click", because old Mac mouse has only one button.

Qt therefore automatically translates "Ctrl+Left Click" to "right click". But we don't want this feature for our application, we want it to be "Ctrl+left click".

In the Qt4 era, we used to do a trick in the macEvent function, such that whenever we see "Ctrl+Left click", we mark a flag and handle this event differently.

#ifdef _APPLE_
bool SomeWidget::macEvent(EventHandlerCallRef, EventRef event)
{
if ( event is ctrl+left )

{ m_isRightClick = true; return false; }

return false;
}

bool GLCanvas::macEventFilter (EventHandlerCallRef caller, EventRef event)

{ return false; }

#endif

We recently moved to Qt5. Since macEvent doesn't exist anymore, we changed our code to the following:

bool SomeWidget::nativeEvent(const QByteArray & eventType, void * message, long * result)
{
if (eventType == "mac_generic_NSEvent")
{
EventRef ev = static_cast<EventRef>(message);

if ( .. event is ctrl+left click...)

{ m_isRightClick = true; }

}
else

{ ... }

return false;
}

but this doesn't work anymore, because on Mac nativeEvent never gets called.

the attachment is a simple program that can reproduce this issue.

it is modified from the helloGL example. I simply added a nativeEvent function to the QGLWidget.

the same program can call into nativeEvent on Windows, but won't under Mac.

Is this a bug or just a missing implementation?

the Document on this page is very unclear.

http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/qwidget.html#nativeEvent

it doesn't give any example of using nativeEvent under mac, although it says nativeEvent replaces macEvent.

Inside the event type table, it only lists:
Windows "windows_generic_MSG" MSG * LRESULT

it doesn't mention Mac event type (mac_generic_NSEvent) at all?

it also doesn't say how to check the event type. is it a string or enum?