Monitor keyboard events inside process (Process Wide)

Question

I can install system wide keyboard monitor by the below instructions:

CGEventRef eventCallback(CGEventTapProxy proxy, CGEventType type,
    CGEventRef event, void *userData)
{
}

CFMachPortRef eventTap = CGEventTapCreate(kCGHIDEventTap,
    kCGHeadInsertEventTap, kCGEventTapOptionDefault,
    kCGEventKeyDown,
    &eventCallback,
    NULL);
if(eventTap)
{
    CFRunLoopSourceRef eventRunLoopSourceRef =
        CFMachPortCreateRunLoopSource(NULL, eventTap, 0);
    CFRelease(eventTap);
    CFRunLoopAddSource(CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), eventRunLoopSourceRef,
        kCFRunLoopDefaultMode);
    CFRelease(eventRunLoopSourceRef);
}

The disadvantage of this code is that it requires to activate "Universal access" in "System Preferences" and also monitor all processes (I do not need it).

I want to monitor keyboard events inside my process. How it possible and is it required to activate "Universal access"? Thankyou.

Answer 1

I think you want NSEvent's addLocalMonitorForEventsMatchingMask:handler:

self.eventMonitor = [NSEvent addLocalMonitorForEventsMatchingMask:NSKeyDownMask 
    handler:^(NSEvent *event) {
        NSLog( @"keyDown event!" );
        return event;
    }];

See the docs. This doesn't require Universal Access to be turned on.