Explore the various UI frameworks available for building app interfaces. Discuss the use cases for different frameworks, share best practices, and get help with specific framework-related questions.

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MacOS Scale to view
on iOS you can choose to scale to view to have the app resize the screen easily in the developer environment. Scale to view is however not easily done on MacOS using NS to solve on MacOS now. Is it possible for the Apple developer team to make this easier for the Developer, as I understand it is for iOS applications?
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272
Feb ’25
Is it reasonable to vend an NSView from a "ViewModel" when using NSViewRepresentable instead of implementing the Coordinator pattern?
I'm currently integrating SwiftUI into an AppKit based application and was curious if the design pattern below was viable or not. In order to "bridge" between AppKit and SwiftUI, most of my SwiftUI "root" views have aViewModel that is accessible to the SwiftUI view via @ObservedObject. When a SwiftUI views need to use NSViewRepresentable I'm finding the use of a ViewModel and a Coordinator to be an unnecessary layer of indirection. In cases where it makes sense, I've just used the ViewModel as the Coordinator and it all appears to be working ok, but I'm curious if this is reasonable design pattern or if I'm overlooking something. Consider the following pseudo code: // 1. A normal @ObservedObject acting as the ViewModel that also owns and manages an NSTableView. @MainActor final class ViewModel: ObservedObject, NSTableView... { let scrollView: NSScrollView let tableView: NSTableView @Published var selectedTitle: String init() { // ViewModel manages tableView as its dataSource and delegate. tableView.dataSource = self tableView.delegate = self } func reload() { tableView.reloadData() } // Update view model properties. // Simpler than passing back up through a Coordinator. func tableViewSelectionDidChange(_ notification: Notification) { selectedTitle = tableView.selectedItem.title } } // 2. A normal SwiftUI view, mostly driven by the ViewModel. struct ContentView: View { @ObservedObject model: ViewModel var body: some View { Text(model.selectedTitle) // No need to pass anything down other than the view model. MyTableView(model: model) Button("Reload") { model.reload() } Button("Delete") { model.deleteRow(...) } } } // 3. A barebones NSViewRepresentable that just vends the required NSView. No other state is required as the ViewModel handles all interactions with the view. struct MyTableView: NSViewRepresentable { // Can this even be an NSView? let model: ViewModel func makeNSView(context: Context) -> some NSView { return model.scrollView } func updateNSView(_ nsView: NSViewType, context: Context) { // Not needed, all updates are driven through the ViewModel. } } From what I can tell, the above is working as expected, but I'm curious if there are some situations where this could "break", particularly around the lifecycle of NSViewRepresentable Would love to know if overall pattern is "ok" from a SwiftUI perspective.
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65
Apr ’25
About CarPlay entitlement of EV
I'm developing a CarPlay version of my app, with the CarPlay EV Charging App entitlement (com.apple.developer.carplay-charging). However, I would like to use the Search template to searching for charging stations — but it seems this template is only available for Navigation Apps(maps). In this case, what is the recommended approach? Is it possible to apply both entitlements simultaneously and use the Search template only?
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76
Jun ’25
The @Environment(\.dismiss) value in SwiftUI for macOS does not dismiss a sheet presented by an NSWindowController.
I'm wondering what the correct, or recommended, way is to dismiss a SwiftUI that is being presented as a sheet hosted by an NSHostingController. The usual technique of invoking @Environment(\.dismiss) does not appear to work. Consider the code below. An NSWindowController is attempting to display a SwiftUI SettingsView as a sheet. The sheet is correctly presented, but the SettingsView is unable to dismiss itself. I am able to make it work by passing a closure into SettingsView that calls back to the NSWindowController but it's rather convoluted because SettingsView doesn't know the view controller that's hosting it until after SettingsView has been created, which means "finding" that view controller in the window controller to dismiss is more involved than it should be. Is there a better strategy to leverage here? final class MyViewController: NSViewController { @IBAction func buttonClicked(_ sender: NSButton) { if let presenter = window?.contentViewController { presenter.presentAsSheet(NSHostingController(rootView: SettingsView())) } } } struct SettingsView: View { @Environment(\.dismiss) private var dismiss var body: some View { VStack { Button("Cancel", role: .cancel) { dismiss() // This call does not dismiss the sheet. } .keyboardShortcut(.cancelAction) } } } Thank you. macOS 15.4.1 (24E263), Xcode 16.3 (16E140)
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89
Apr ’25
Xcode UIKit Document App template crashes under Swift 6
I'm trying to switch to UIKit's document lifecycle due to serious bugs with SwiftUI's version. However I'm noticing the template project from Xcode isn't compatible with Swift 6 (I already migrated my app to Swift 6.). To reproduce: File -> New -> Project Select "Document App" under iOS Set "Interface: UIKit" In Build Settings, change Swift Language Version to Swift 6 Run app Tap "Create Document" Observe: crash in _dispatch_assert_queue_fail Does anyone know of a work around other than downgrading to Swift 5?
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97
Apr ’25
VideoToolbox crash in macOS
My Mac app crashes for some users inside VideoToolbox, and I'm not sure what to do with that, and how to fix it. Here are couple of examples that repeating again and again for macOS 15.* Thread 10 Crashed: 0 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x000000018535a8e0 0x185359000 + 6368 1 VideoToolbox 0x0000000194f3e218 0x194f28000 + 90648 2 VideoToolbox 0x00000001951de384 0x194f28000 + 2843524 3 libxpc.dylib 0x000000018506f2c0 0x185060000 + 62144 4 libxpc.dylib 0x000000018506da14 0x185060000 + 55828 5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851ad674 0x1851a9000 + 18036 6 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851c9c88 0x1851a9000 + 134280 7 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851b4a38 0x1851a9000 + 47672 8 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851ca9dc 0x1851a9000 + 137692 9 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851b4a38 0x1851a9000 + 47672 10 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851b5764 0x1851a9000 + 51044 11 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851bf4cc 0x1851a9000 + 91340 12 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001851bf260 0x1851a9000 + 90720 13 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00000001853602e4 0x185359000 + 29412 14 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x000000018535b0fc 0x185359000 + 8444 and Thread 10 Crashed: 0 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00000001981fc364 0x1981fb000 + 4964 1 VideoToolbox 0x00000001a85f9964 0x1a81e8000 + 4266340 2 VideoToolbox 0x00000001a847a840 0x1a81e8000 + 2697280 3 libxpc.dylib 0x0000000197f09830 0x197efb000 + 59440 4 libxpc.dylib 0x0000000197f0812c 0x197efb000 + 53548 5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001980638a4 0x198048000 + 112804 6 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001980660e8 0x198048000 + 123112 7 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001980521b8 0x198048000 + 41400 8 libdispatch.dylib 0x0000000198066e4c 0x198048000 + 126540 9 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001980521b8 0x198048000 + 41400 10 libdispatch.dylib 0x0000000198052e60 0x198048000 + 44640 11 libdispatch.dylib 0x000000019805be30 0x198048000 + 81456 12 libdispatch.dylib 0x000000019805bbf0 0x198048000 + 80880 13 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x0000000198201c0c 0x1981fb000 + 27660 14 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00000001981fcb80 0x1981fb000 + 7040 and this one is for macOS 14 Thread 10 Crashed: 0 VideoToolbox 0x000000018f12ac90 0x18f11d000 + 56464 1 VideoToolbox 0x000000018f130a80 0x18f11d000 + 80512 2 VideoToolbox 0x000000018f131090 0x18f11d000 + 82064 3 VideoToolbox 0x000000018f130f94 0x18f11d000 + 81812 4 Remote for Mac 0x00000001048d521c 0x1048d0000 + 21020 5 Foundation 0x000000018174796c 0x181709000 + 256364 6 Foundation 0x000000018174782c 0x181709000 + 256044 7 Foundation 0x00000001817477bc 0x181709000 + 255932 8 Foundation 0x0000000181746b64 0x181709000 + 252772 9 Foundation 0x00000001817468d4 0x181709000 + 252116 10 Foundation 0x00000001817467c4 0x181709000 + 251844 11 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001803b0470 0x18039d000 + 78960 12 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001803a13e8 0x18039d000 + 17384 13 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001803a48ec 0x18039d000 + 30956 14 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001803a3f08 0x18039d000 + 28424 15 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001803b2ea8 0x18039d000 + 89768 16 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001803b36b8 0x18039d000 + 91832 17 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x000000018054dfd0 0x18054b000 + 12240 18 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x000000018054cd28 0x18054b000 + 7464
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106
Apr ’25
Focused Views Get Clipped When Using NavigationStack or Form in Split-Screen Layout on tvOS
When attempting to replicate the tvOS Settings menu layout, where the screen is divided horizontally into two sections, placing a NavigationStack or a Form view on either side of the screen causes focusable views (such as Button, TextField, Toggle, etc.) to be visually clipped when they receive focus and apply the default scaling animation. Specifically: If the Form or NavigationStack is placed on the right side, the left edge of the focused view gets clipped. If placed on the left side, the right edge of the focused view gets clipped. This issue affects any focusable child view inside the Form or NavigationStack when focus scaling is triggered. Example code: struct TVAppMenuMainView: View { var body: some View { VStack { Text("Settings Menu") .font(.title) HStack { VStack { Text("Left Pane") } .frame(width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width * 0.4) // represents only 40% of the screen .frame(maxHeight: .infinity) .padding(.bottom) Divider() NavigationStack { Form { // All the buttons will get cut on the left side when each button is focused Button("First Button"){} Button("Second Button"){} Button("Third Button"){} Button("Forth Button"){} } } } .frame(maxHeight: .infinity) .frame(maxWidth: .infinity) } .background(.ultraThickMaterial) } } How it looks: What I have tried: .clipped modifiers .ignoresSafeArea Modifying the size manually Using just a ScrollView with VStack works as intended, but as soon as NavigationStack or Form are added, the buttons get clipped. This was tested on the latest 18.5 tvOS BETA
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82
Apr ’25
Reading large documents
Can the SwiftUI document architecture Take a file as read-only; never to be written out Take files too large for memory (multi-MB, or even GB) I wouldn't want the system to read a gigabyte size file into memory by default. If the system can use a memory-mapped Data as the representation, that'll be something I can make do. It would be even better if I could tell the system that I'll handle all the reading, all I need from it is a reference to the file's location on disk.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
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43
Apr ’25
Custom slider png on gui
Im student, hobbyst on developing. i have a problem inserting a custom slidee PNG to control volume of an áudio file in an app. The slidee built in Swift, runs ok. When i try to use a custom png it show in the Gui but when move its button right it disappear beyond the maximum but when i move ir left the minimamente is at middle of the slider scale
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
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42
Apr ’25
Live Activity animate without updating data
Is it actually possible to display animation (even a simple one) on Live Activity? But on these cases: The main app is terminated - of course, I know I can use the main app to keep updating the Live Activity to make simple animations work, but in this case, the main app is killed. Live Activity data is not updating - I also understand that the Live Activity can perform animations when its data is being update via push notification or other means, but the current case is the data is not being updated. I’ve tried several ways to achieve this, but nothing seems to work. Just when I was about to give up, I found this video from Apple’s official channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6WMwSj_EbA At 4:14 in this video, you can see the text "Locating Driver" with the breathing animation. Could someone please help me understand how to implement that kind of animation in a Live Activity when: The main app is not running, and The Live Activity data is not updating?
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144
Apr ’25
Dynamically resizing NSPreferencePane content
Is it not possible to dynamically change or constrain an NSPreferencePane's mainView size? I have looked all over and this doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere. The most I can seemingly do is set the frame and hope the user doesn't resize the window. class scor: NSPreferencePane { override func mainViewDidLoad() { mainView = NSHostingView(rootView: ContentView()) mainView.frame = NSMakeRect(0, 0, 668, 1048) } } Here is a screenshot, just with a simple webview as a test, note the scrollbar: My storyboard is just from the default prefpane Xcode template, nothing special. I looked at the header file for NSPreferencePane and came up with nothing. All I can think of is that this is impossible due to the way they are implemented? The only thing we seemingly have access to is mainView, so I can't like constrain the size of mainView to its parent, for example. Additionally, if I make a new preference pane, and make a button or other view that I choose to resize to fill horizontally and vertically, it does that, but not really? Here is what that looks like: The behaviour is similar to the previous preference pane, the width does adapt correctly, the height stays the same, forever. Not that it really matters but I am using macOS 14.7.6 on an M2 air
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95
Jun ’25
Child Views and ViewThatFits
I'd like to support different template views within a ViewThatFits for items within a list, allowing the list to optimize its layout for different devices. Within the child views is a Text view that is bound to the name of an item. I'd rather the Text view simply truncate the text as necessary although it instead is influencing which view is chosen by ViewThatFits. I'd also rather not artificially set the maxWidth of the Text view as it artificially limits the width on devices where it's not necessary (e.g. iPad Pro vs. iPad mini or iPhone). Any guidance or suggestions on how this can be accomplished as it looks very odd for the layout of one row in the list to be quite different than the rest of the rows.
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72
Jun ’25
LaunchScreen is black when i use image set
Anybody can help me with the problems of splashboard? My request is to create a launchScreen.storyboard that can follows system's theme. So in the storyboard i use the image set resource which is created in Assets.xcassets. But i encountered the following problems: when i use image set resource,the splashboard is black, seems like springboard fail to generate the ktx file. But when i move the same image file to the root of Resource directory, it works. Why???? Some image works when it is put in Image set, some file can't. But all file don't work when the image set contains both light image and dark image. Why??? Suddenly it works for when i change compression attribute to lossess,so i guess the problems hanppened when my image is compressed. And two days later, the splash board is dark again when i debug. So what is the cache strategy for the splash board and the image resource used. How can i clear the cache, delete the app is not enough? Should i restart my phone? That's all, anybody can help me?
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: General
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41
Apr ’25
Get NSTextView selection frame with NSTextLayoutManager
I'm trying to update my app to use TextKit 2. The one thing that I'm still not sure about is how I can get the selection frame. My app uses it to auto-scroll the text to keep the cursor at the same height when the text wraps onto a new line or a newline is manually inserted. Currently I'm using NSLayoutManager.layoutManager!.boundingRect(forGlyphRange:in:). The code below almost works. When editing the text or changing the selection, the current selection frame is printed out. My expectation is that the selection frame after a text or selection change should be equal to the selection frame before the next text change. I've noticed that this is not always true when the text has a NSParagraphStyle with spacing > 0. As long as I type at the end of the text, everything's fine, but if I insert some lines, then move the selection somewhere into the middle of the text and insert another newline, the frame printed after manually moving the selection is different than the frame before the newline is inserted. It seems that the offset between the two frames is exactly the same as the paragraph style's spacing. Instead when moving the selection with the arrow key the printed frames are correct. I've filed FB17104954. class ViewController: NSViewController, NSTextViewDelegate { private var textView: NSTextView! override func loadView() { let scrollView = NSScrollView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 400, height: 400)) textView = NSTextView(frame: scrollView.frame) textView.autoresizingMask = [.width, .height] textView.delegate = self let paragraphStyle = NSMutableParagraphStyle() paragraphStyle.lineSpacing = 40 textView.typingAttributes = [.foregroundColor: NSColor.labelColor, .paragraphStyle: paragraphStyle] scrollView.documentView = textView scrollView.hasVerticalScroller = true view = scrollView } func textView(_ textView: NSTextView, shouldChangeTextIn affectedCharRange: NSRange, replacementString: String?) -> Bool { print("before", selectionFrame.maxY, selectionFrame) return true } func textDidChange(_ notification: Notification) { print("after ", selectionFrame.maxY, selectionFrame) } func textViewDidChangeSelection(_ notification: Notification) { print("select", selectionFrame.maxY, selectionFrame) } var selectionFrame: CGRect { guard let selection = textView.textLayoutManager!.textSelections.first?.textRanges.first else { return .null } var frame = CGRect.null textView.textLayoutManager!.ensureLayout(for: selection) textView.textLayoutManager!.enumerateTextSegments(in: selection, type: .selection, options: [.rangeNotRequired]) { _, rect, _, _ in frame = rect return false } return frame } }
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118
Apr ’25
SwiftUI: .searchable displays incorrectly in child views under NavigationStack
There appears to be a visual bug when using .searchable in a child view that’s pushed via NavigationLink inside a NavigationStack. Specifically, the search bar appears briefly in the wrong position (or animates in an unexpected way) during the transition to the child view. This issue does not occur when using NavigationView instead of NavigationStack. Steps to Reproduce: Create a TabView with a single tab containing a NavigationStack. Push from a ContentView to a DetailsView using NavigationLink. Add a .searchable modifier to both the ContentView and DetailsView. Run the app and tap a row to navigate to the details view. Expected Behavior The search bar in the DetailsView should appear smoothly and in the correct position as the view transitions in, just like it does under NavigationView. Actual Behavior When the DetailsView appears, the search bar briefly animates or appears in the wrong location before settling into place. This results in a jarring or buggy visual experience. Feedback: FB17031212 Here is a reddit thread discussing the issue as well https://www.reddit.com/r/SwiftUI/comments/137epji/navigation_stack_with_search_bar_has_a_bug_and_a/ I hope that an Apple engineer can get this fixed soon. It's frustrating to have new APIs come out with the old deprecated yet there are still obvious bugs two years later. import SwiftUI public enum Tab { case main } struct AppTabNavigation: View { @State private var tabSelection = Tab.main var body: some View { TabView(selection: $tabSelection) { NavigationStack { ContentView() } .tag(Tab.main) .tabItem { Label("Main", systemImage: "star") } } } } struct ContentView: View { @State private var searchText = "" var body: some View { List(0..<100) { i in NavigationLink("Select \(i)", value: i) } .navigationTitle("Main") .searchable(text: $searchText) .navigationDestination(for: Int.self) { i in DetailsView(i: i) } } } struct DetailsView: View { @State private var searchText = "" let i: Int // MARK: - Body var body: some View { List { ForEach(0..<10, id: \.self) { i in Text("Hello \(i)") } } .navigationTitle(i.formatted()) .searchable(text: $searchText) } }
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
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72
Mar ’25
How to make app for iPhone and iPad separatly
I released an app for iPhone (and it's could be downloaded for iPad also), and now I developered another app for iPad version with the same code and logic but I modified the layout to fit bigger screen and make better user experience and appearance. Howevert the app review rejected my release due to the duplicate content, how can I solve it?
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: General
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47
Mar ’25
Custom keypad touchUpInside events not working in iOS18
I have a custom keypad to accept numeric input for iPads that I have been using for many years now. This is longstanding working code. With iOS 18 the touchUpInside (and other) events in the underlying Objective-C modules are not called in the file owner module when activated from the interface. The buttons seem to be properly activated based on the visual cues (they change colors when pressed). This is occurring in both simulators and on hardware. Setting the target OS version does not help. What could the cause and/or solution of this be?
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75
Mar ’25
How to override NSWindow in a pure SwiftUI Application
So I am looking to use a custom NSWindow application (so I can implement some enhanced resizing/dragging behavior which is only possible overriding NSWindow). The problem is my whole application is currently SwiftUI-based (see the project here: https://github.com/msdrigg/Roam/blob/50a2a641aa5f2fccb4382e14dbb410c1679d8b0c/Roam/RoamApp.swift). I know there is a way to make this work by dropping my @main SwiftUI app and replacing it with a SwiftUI root view hosted in a standard AppKit root app, but that feels like I'm going backwards. Is there another way to get access (and override) the root NSWindow for a SwiftUI app?
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293
Mar ’25