I've been experimenting with tracking area, and having some problems, so I created this simple program as a test. I create one tracking area in the lower left corner of my view (which is the window's content view), but I receive mouseEntered and exited messages no matter where I enter or exit the view. I've also tried putting this code in the init method and awakeFromNib with the same results.

@implementation Parent //This view is the contentView of the main window

-(void)viewDidMoveToWindow{
    NSLog(@"In viwDidMoveToWindow");
    NSTrackingArea *area = [[NSTrackingArea alloc]initWithRect:NSMakeRect(0,0,50,50) options:NSTrackingInVisibleRect |NSTrackingMouseEnteredAndExited |NSTrackingActiveInActiveApp owner:self userInfo:nil];
    [self addTrackingArea:area];
}

-(void)mouseEntered:(NSEvent *)theEvent {
    NSLog(@"Entered");
}

-(void)mouseExited:(NSEvent *)theEvent {
    NSLog(@"Exited");
}

@end

Why is the tracking area not being respected?

• objective-c
• cocoa

It has to do with the options you are using, try instead using

options:NSTrackingActiveAlways | NSTrackingMouseEnteredAndExited