[MNT]: macOS backend lacks standard keyboard shortcuts #31770

Summary

A longstanding issue that I've had with matplotlib is the lack of support for standard macOS keyboard shortcuts:

And when dealing with text input (the save dialog):

In addition, macOS Sequoia also added several keyboard shortcuts for dealing with tiling window management.

On macOS, most of these shortcuts are driven by menu items in the main menu bar. The matplotlib macOS backend sets up the shared NSApplication instance when it calls +[NSApplication sharedInstance]; however, it never fills the NSApplication.mainMenu property with a main menu.

Similarly, as NSApplication.windowsMenu is never set, macOS doesn't add the applicable menu items or shortcuts for dealing with the tiling window manager.

I'd like to address this by creating a main menu when the macOS backend is used.

There are several ways to solve this, and I'd like some guidance so I don't step on any toes :)

1. I can create the main menu programmatically in _macosx.m. This is likely the most straightforward approach, but it would involve a lot of hardcoded strings for menu titles in the .m file and ultimately lack localization support.

   From an architectural perspective, it seems like existing titles/tooltips are hardcoded at the Python layer, shipped to the backend, which then converts it into UI buttons. That's doable as well, but is a lot of complexity.

2. Create a standard MainMenu.xib file that would be edited as a standalone file with Xcode. Invoke ibtool from the build system to generate a .nib file, package that at a similar level to existing image files, then load this from _macosx.m. This would require maintainers to use the Xcode app for editing the main menu, which might be a deal-breaker for some.

3. Create a new Xcode project for macOS UI assets. For now, this would be the main menu xib. In the future, it could be localized UI strings, images, icons, etc. Have the project generate a .bundle with compiled .nibs / .car / .strings / etc.

   This is likely overkill for now, but could simplify asset creation in the future as Apple pushes for even more UI variants to apps (light / dark / tinted / glass / sigh). Xcode can generate those variants automatically and also generate compatible versions for previous macOS releases.

I'm fine with any of these approaches.

There's also the approach of doing all of this without a main menu, but I think that would be harder to maintain in the future as it's not what macOS expects.

Proposed fix

No response