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.

All subtopics
Posts under UI Frameworks topic

Post

Replies

Boosts

Views

Activity

A Summary of the WWDC25 Group Lab - UI Frameworks
At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for UI Frameworks. How would you recommend developers start adopting the new design? Start by focusing on the foundational structural elements of your application, working from the "top down" or "bottom up" based on your application's hierarchy. These structural changes, like edge-to-edge content and updated navigation and controls, often require corresponding code modifications. As a first step, recompile your application with the new SDK to see what updates are automatically applied, especially if you've been using standard controls. Then, carefully analyze where the new design elements can be applied to your UI, paying particular attention to custom controls or UI that could benefit from a refresh. Address the large structural items first then focus on smaller details is recommended. Will we need to migrate our UI code to Swift and SwiftUI to adopt the new design? No, you will not need to migrate your UI code to Swift and SwiftUI to adopt the new design. The UI frameworks fully support the new design, allowing you to migrate your app with as little effort as possible, especially if you've been using standard controls. The goal is to make it easy to adopt the new design, regardless of your current UI framework, to achieve a cohesive look across the operating system. What was the reason for choosing Liquid Glass over frosted glass, as used in visionOS? The choice of Liquid Glass was driven by the desire to bring content to life. The see-through nature of Liquid Glass enhances this effect. The appearance of Liquid Glass adapts based on its size; larger glass elements look more frosted, which aligns with the design of visionOS, where everything feels larger and benefits from the frosted look. What are best practices for apps that use customized navigation bars? The new design emphasizes behavior and transitions as much as static appearance. Consider whether you truly need a custom navigation bar, or if the system-provided controls can meet your needs. Explore new APIs for subtitles and custom views in navigation bars, designed to support common use cases. If you still require a custom solution, ensure you're respecting safe areas using APIs like SwiftUI's safeAreaInset. When working with Liquid Glass, group related buttons in shared containers to maintain design consistency. Finally, mark glass containers as interactive. For branding, instead of coloring the navigation bar directly, consider incorporating branding colors into the content area behind the Liquid Glass controls. This creates a dynamic effect where the color is visible through the glass and moves with the content as the user scrolls. I want to know why new UI Framework APIs aren’t backward compatible, specifically in SwiftUI? It leads to code with lots of if-else statements. Existing APIs have been updated to work with the new design where possible, ensuring that apps using those APIs will adopt the new design and function on both older and newer operating systems. However, new APIs often depend on deep integration across the framework and graphics stack, making backward compatibility impractical. When using these new APIs, it's important to consider how they fit within the context of the latest OS. The use of if-else statements allows you to maintain compatibility with older systems while taking full advantage of the new APIs and design features on newer systems. If you are using new APIs, it likely means you are implementing something very specific to the new design language. Using conditional code allows you to intentionally create different code paths for the new design versus older operating systems. Prefer to use if #available where appropriate to intentionally adopt new design elements. Are there any Liquid Glass materials in iOS or macOS that are only available as part of dedicated components? Or are all those materials available through new UIKit and AppKit views? Yes, some variations of the Liquid Glass material are exclusively available through dedicated components like sliders, segmented controls, and tab bars. However, the "regular" and "clear" glass materials should satisfy most application requirements. If you encounter situations where these options are insufficient, please file feedback. If I were to create an app today, how should I design it to make it future proof using Liquid Glass? The best approach to future-proof your app is to utilize standard system controls and design your UI to align with the standard system look and feel. Using the framework-provided declarative API generally leads to easier adoption of future design changes, as you're expressing intent rather than specifying pixel-perfect visuals. Pay close attention to the design sessions offered this year, which cover the design motivation behind the Liquid Glass material and best practices for its use. Is it possible to implement your own sidebar on macOS without NSSplitViewController, but still provide the Liquid Glass appearance? While technically possible to create a custom sidebar that approximates the Liquid Glass appearance without using NSSplitViewController, it is not recommended. The system implementation of the sidebar involves significant unseen complexity, including interlayering with scroll edge effects and fullscreen behaviors. NSSplitViewController provides the necessary level of abstraction for the framework to handle these details correctly. Regarding the SceneDelagate and scene based life-cycle, I would like to confirm that AppDelegate is not going away. Also if the above is a correct understanding, is there any advice as to what should, and should not, be moved to the SceneDelegate? UIApplicationDelegate is not going away and still serves a purpose for application-level interactions with the system and managing scenes at a higher level. Move code related to your app's scene or UI into the UISceneDelegate. Remember that adopting scenes doesn't necessarily mean supporting multiple scenes; an app can be scene-based but still support only one scene. Refer to the tech note Migrating to the UIKit scene-based life cycle and the Make your UIKit app more flexible WWDC25 session for more information.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: General
0
0
691
Jun ’25
"Add-on" services no longer supported?
Our MacOS app has for some time been able to create so-called "add-on" services, which are dynamically written to individual bundles in ~/Library/Services/ (as opposed to being statically defined in the app's Info.plist). These worked fine for a long time until recently. They still appear in other app Services menus, but do not get as far as calling the specified instance method in our app. Does anyone know if add-on services are no longer supported? Perhaps due to some new security constraint? The documentation on app services in general seems to be out of date. I did try copying the add-on service definition from the add-on plist into the app's Info.plist. That seemed to work, so the basic specification doesn't seem to have changed.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: AppKit
0
0
276
Jan ’25
Page Freeze Caused by Gesture
When pushing a page in the navigation, changing the state of interactivePopGestureRecognizer causes the page to freeze. Just like this: #import "ViewController.h" @interface ViewController () @end @implementation ViewController - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; // Do any additional setup after loading the view. CGFloat red = (arc4random_uniform(256) / 255.0); CGFloat green = (arc4random_uniform(256) / 255.0); CGFloat blue = (arc4random_uniform(256) / 255.0); CGFloat alpha = 1.0; // self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:red green:green blue:blue alpha:alpha]; UIButton *btn = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom]; btn.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 44); btn.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor]; btn.center = self.view.center; [btn setTitle:@"push click" forState:UIControlStateNormal]; [btn addTarget:self action:@selector(click:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside]; [self.view addSubview:btn]; } - (void)click:(id)sender { [self.navigationController pushViewController:[ViewController new] animated:YES]; } - (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated{ [super viewWillAppear:animated]; self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = NO; } - (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated{ [super viewDidAppear:animated]; self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = YES; } @end
0
0
336
Feb ’25
Detect user's tap on status bar
I have an app which uses Scene var body: some Scene { WindowGroup { RootView(root: appDelegate.root) .edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all) .onOpenURL { url in let stringUrl = url.absoluteString if (stringUrl.starts(with: "http")) { handleUniversalLink(url: stringUrl) } else if (stringUrl.starts(with: "fb")) { let _ = ApplicationDelegate.shared.application( UIApplication.shared, open: url, sourceApplication: nil, annotation: [UIApplication.OpenURLOptionsKey.annotation]) } } } } I need to detect when a user taps on status bar. And call some functions when he does it. Is it possible in Swift?
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
0
0
247
Feb ’25
Difficulty Localizing App Display Name Based on Region in iOS.
I have an application named "XY" that has been launched in several countries. Now, I intend to launch it in Turkey, but we are facing legal issues preventing us from using "XY" as the app's display name. Following the documentation, I localized the app's display name to "ZX" for both Turkish and English (Turkey). However, when users change their device settings, they do not see an option for English (Turkey) language selection. I assumed that for Turkish users, English (Turkey) would be the default language, but this is not the case. Could someone please assist me in resolving this issue? I've investigated options for localizing the display name based on region, but it seems that this functionality isn't feasible on iOS. In contrast, it's relatively straightforward to achieve on Android platforms.
0
0
418
Mar ’25
UICollectionView Dequeue Crash Xcode 16.2
I am facing same issue with major crash while coming out from this function. Basically using collectionView.dequeReusableCell with size calculation. func getSizeOfFavouriteCell(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, at indexPath: IndexPath, item: FindCircleInfoCellItem) -> CGSize { guard let dummyCell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell( withReuseIdentifier: TAButtonAddCollectionViewCell.reuseIdentifier, for: indexPath) as? TAButtonAddCollectionViewCell else { return CGSize.zero } dummyCell.title = item.title dummyCell.subtitle = item.subtitle dummyCell.icon = item.icon dummyCell.layoutIfNeeded() var targetSize = CGSize.zero if viewModel.favoritesDataSource.isEmpty.not, viewModel.favoritesDataSource.count > FindSheetViewControllerConstants.minimumFavoritesToDisplayInSection { targetSize = CGSize(width: collectionView.frame.size.width / 2, height: collectionView.frame.height) var estimatedSize: CGSize = dummyCell.systemLayoutSizeFitting(targetSize) if estimatedSize.width > targetSize.width { estimatedSize.width = targetSize.width } return CGSize(width: estimatedSize.width, height: targetSize.height) } } We have resolve issue with size calculation with checking nil. Working fine in xcode 15 and 16+. Note: Please help me with reason of crash? Is it because of xCode 16.2 onwards **strict check on UICollectionView **
0
0
136
Apr ’25
UIDocumentBrowserViewController - adjust order and color of navigation bar items
I'm using UIDocumentBrowserViewController. This view controller automatically creates a TabView with navigation titles and up to two trailing navigation bar items. To visualize this, open the Files app by Apple on an iPhone. I want to do the following: Add a third button and place it farthest on the trailing side. Keep all three buttons blue (the default color), but adjust the color of the navigation title to use the primary text color (it is also currently blue, by default) Button Order If my button is represented by C, then the order from left-to-right or leading-to-trailing should be A B C. I tried to add it by using additionaltrailingnavigationbarbuttonitems: class DocumentBrowserViewController: UIDocumentBrowserViewController, UIDocumentBrowserViewControllerDelegate { override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() let button = UIBarButtonItem(...) additionalTrailingNavigationBarButtonItems.append(button) } } This always adds it as the leftmost trailing item. The order when the view loads is C A B, where C represents my button. Here are some things I've tried: Add it in viewWillAppear - same results. Add it in viewDidAppear - same results. Add it using rightBarButtonItems - does not show up at all. insert it at: 0 instead of appending it - same results. Add it with a delay using DispatchQueue.main.async - same results. After some experimentation, I realized that the arrays referenced by additionalTrailingNavigationBarButtons and rightBarButtonItems seem to be empty, other than my own button. This is the case even if the DispatchQueue delay is so long that the view has already rendered and the two default buttons are clearly visible. So I'm not sure how to place my button relative to these, since I can't figure out where they actually are in the view controller's properties. How do I put my button farther to the trailing/right side of these two default buttons? Title Color The navigation titles created by UIDocumentBrowserViewController are blue when not in their inline format. I want them to use the primary text color instead. In viewDidLoad, I could do something like this: UINavigationBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor.label This will change the title color to white or black, but it will also change the color of the buttons. I've tried various approaches like titleTextAttributes, and none of them seem to work with this view controller. How do I change just the color of the navigation title, and not the color of the navigation bar items?
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: UIKit
0
0
352
Jan ’25
Animation Issue: SwiftUI View Not Animating Height Changes in UIHostingController
Hello, I’m developing an app where I display a SwiftUI view inside a UIHostingController embedded within a UIKit ViewController. I’m trying to animate the height of the UIHostingController’s view based on a switch’s value, but the SwiftUI view doesn’t animate at all. Below is a simplified version of my code: class ViewController: UIViewController { private lazy var parentView: UIView = { let view = UIView() view.backgroundColor = .red view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false return view }() private lazy var hostingView: UIView = { let testView = TestView() let hostingController = UIHostingController(rootView: testView) let view = hostingController.view! view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false return view }() private lazy var button: UISwitch = { let button = UISwitch() button.addTarget(self, action: #selector(onClickSwitch(sender:)), for: .valueChanged) button.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false return button }() private var hostingViewHeightConstraint: NSLayoutConstraint? override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() view.addSubview(parentView) parentView.addSubview(hostingView) parentView.addSubview(button) NSLayoutConstraint.activate([ parentView.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.topAnchor), parentView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.bottomAnchor), parentView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.leadingAnchor), parentView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.trailingAnchor) ]) NSLayoutConstraint.activate([ hostingView.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: parentView.bottomAnchor), hostingView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: parentView.leadingAnchor), hostingView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: parentView.trailingAnchor) ]) hostingViewHeightConstraint = hostingView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: parentView.heightAnchor, multiplier: 0.5) hostingViewHeightConstraint?.isActive = true NSLayoutConstraint.activate([ button.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: parentView.centerXAnchor), NSLayoutConstraint(item: button, attribute: .centerY, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: parentView, attribute: .centerY, multiplier: 0.25, constant: 0) ]) } @objc func onClickSwitch(sender: UISwitch) { hostingViewHeightConstraint?.isActive = false let multiplier: CGFloat = sender.isOn ? 0.25 : 0.5 hostingViewHeightConstraint = hostingView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: parentView.heightAnchor, multiplier: multiplier) hostingViewHeightConstraint?.isActive = true UIView.animate(withDuration: 0.3) { self.view.layoutIfNeeded() } } } I’m looking for the behavior demonstrated in the video below: Does anyone have suggestions on how to achieve this?
0
1
187
Mar ’25
iPadOS 18 App (on Apple Silicon) - Duplicate Tab Bar Appearing in Toolbar
With iPadOS 18, the UITabBar now defaults to the floating style. I successfully reverted the tab bar to its traditional style by overriding the UITabBarController's horizontalSizeClass property: self.tabBarController?.traitOverrides.horizontalSizeClass = .unspecified When I launch the app on my Mac using Apple Silicon, TWO tab bars appear: One appears at the bottom of the screen, like a traditional tab bar. The second tab bar is still embedded in the app toolbar in its floating style. Is this a bug? How do you ensure that overriding the horizontalSizeClass will remove/hide the floating tab bar when running an app on Apple Silicon? TIA! (Demonstrated on a test project)
0
0
488
Jan ’25
[SwiftUI] SecureEntry Autofill in Dark Mode
When using New Password Autofill in Dark Mode, it appears that SecureEntry sets the background color to white and applies a yellow-ish overlay, but doesn't adapt the foreground text color accordingly. This gives the illusion that the SecureEntry field is empty, as we have white text on a white background. Is there a holistic and SwiftUI-native way of fixing this?
0
0
54
Apr ’25
ishidden not working
I set the isHidden property of a view in traitCollectionDidChange and found that sometime it does not take effect after being set(value of isHidden actually not changed either). It looks like the setting does not take effect when triggered an even number of times, but it is normal when triggered an odd number of times. When setting isHidden, what actually goes into is [UIView (Rendering) setHidden:], which internally calls [UIView _ bitFlagValueAfterIncrementingHiddenManagement CountForKey: withIncrement: bitFlagValue:] to handle the relevant logic of "_UIViewPendingHiddenCount". Is this issue related to this part of the processing? returning 0 after calling seems normal This view is a UIStackView, and it is uncertain whether it is related to the type of view
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: UIKit Tags:
0
0
371
Jan ’25
Translate extension bahvior
DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM We need to add an implementation that will have the same swipe/scroll behavior as the Apple Translator extension, here is the code that we are currently using: import SwiftUI import TranslationUIProvider @main class TranslationProviderExtension: TranslationUIProviderExtension { required init() {} var body: some TranslationUIProviderExtensionScene { TranslationUIProviderSelectedTextScene { context in VStack { TranslationProviderView(context: context) } } } } struct TranslationProviderView: View { @State var context: TranslationUIProviderContext init(context c: TranslationUIProviderContext) { context = c } var body: some View { ScrollableSheetView() } } struct ScrollableSheetView: View { var body: some View { ScrollView { VStack(spacing: 20) { ForEach(0..<50) { index in Text("Item (index)") .padding() .frame(maxWidth: .infinity) .background(Color.blue.opacity(0.1)) .cornerRadius(8) } } .padding() } .padding() } } Using this code, on the first extension run, swipe up will expand the extension (which is OK) but swiping down on the expanded state of the extension works only as a scroll instead of swiping the extension from expanded mode back to compact mode. STEPS TO REPRODUCE Select a text in Safari Tap on Translate in the contextual menu Swipe up on the text ->the extension expands into full mode Swipe down->only scrolls work, I cannot swipe the extension from full mode to compact mode. Expected behavior: when i swipe down on the expanded extension, the extension should get into compact mode, not continuously scroll down.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
0
0
67
Apr ’25
How to Maintain Background Color Consistency During ZoomTransitions in SwiftUI?
I’m currently working on a SwiftUI project and trying to implement a transition effect similar to ZoomTransitions. However, I’ve run into an issue. When transitioning from Page A to Page B using .navigationTransition(.zoom(sourceID: "world", in: animation)), Page A shrinks as expected, but its background color changes to the default white instead of the color I preset. I want the background color of Page A to remain consistent with my preset during the entire transition process. Here’s a simplified version of my code: Page A PartnerCard() .matchedTransitionSource(id: item.id, in: animation) Page B ``.navigationTransition(.zoom(sourceID: "world", in: animation))
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
0
0
288
Jan ’25
Activate hoverEffect on separate entity attachment view
Hi, I'm working on RealityView and I have two entities in RCP. In order to set views for both entities, I have to create two separate attachments for each entity. What I want to achieve is that when I hover (by eye) on one entity's attachment, it would trigger the hover effect of the other entity's attachment. I try to use the hoverEffectGroup, but it would only activate the hover effect in a subview, instead a complete separate view. I refer to the following WWDC instruction for the hover effect. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/10152/
0
0
69
Apr ’25
Keyboard Inaccessibility after Password Save Prompt and App Backgrounding
Hi everyone, I've come across an issue on iOS that seems to affect many apps. Here's what happens: A user logs in with correct credentials and proceeds to the OTP verification screen as part of multi factor authentication. iOS presents the system password save prompt ("Would you like to save this password?"). Without selecting an option on this prompt, the user backgrounds the app (e.g., to check their email for the OTP). Upon returning to the app, the keyboard becomes completely inaccessible on the OTP screen or any other screen. From my testing, this behavior appears to be an OS-level bug, as it occurs consistently across various apps. Has anyone else encountered this? Any known workarounds or updates from Apple on this behavior would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: UIKit
0
4
309
Jan ’25
UICalendarView with decorations - change day height
Is there any way to change the height of the "day" cells in the UICalendarView? The view is very tall on the screen and I'd like to shorten it so I can put more content below it without using a scroll view. I'm using SwiftUI with a UICalendarView with UIViewRepresentable. The calendar will have default decorations to indicate a date with events.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
0
0
209
Feb ’25
Mixing NavigationLink types (value: and non-value: types)
Hello, I was wondering if someone could clear-up my thinking here. e.g. consider the code below... It has a rootView with a navlink to a childView which in turn has navlinks to GrandchildViews. The root view uses basic navLInks NavigationLink{View} label: {View} The child view uses type-based navLinks navigationLink(value:) {View} and .navigationDestination(for:) {View} I would expect the basic navlinks to work in the root view and the type-based ones to work in the child view. However it appears that both are active when one taps on a link in the child view. e.g. User actions: Start -> RootView is only view on the stack -> (tap on ‘Child View’) -> ChildView is top of the stack -> tap on ‘Alice’ -> a second ChildView is top of the stack with a GrandchildView underneath…. Why does this happen, why are the basic links also applied to the childView's links? Thanks. struct Thing: Identifiable, Hashable { let id = UUID() let name: String } struct RootView: View { var body: some View { NavigationStack { List { NavigationLink { ChildView() } label: { Label("Child View", systemImage: "figure.and.child.holdinghands") } NavigationLink { Text("Hello") } label: { Label("Another navLink item in the list", systemImage: "circle") } } .padding() } } } struct ChildView: View { private var things = [ Thing(name: "Alice"), Thing(name: "Bob"), Thing(name: "Charlie"), ] var body: some View { Text("This is the child view") List { ForEach(things) { thing in NavigationLink(value: thing) { Text(thing.name) } } } .navigationTitle("Child View") .navigationDestination(for: Thing.self) { thing in GrandchildView(thing: thing) } } } struct GrandchildView: View { let thing: Thing var body: some View { Text("This is the GrandchildView: \(thing.name)") } }
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: SwiftUI
0
0
126
Mar ’25
detecting modifier keys using UITextFieldDelegate protocol
I have a UITextField in my application, and I want to detect all the keys uniquely to perform all relevant task. However, there is some problem in cleanly identifying some of the keys. I m not able to identify the backspace key press in the textField(_:shouldChangeCharactersIn:replacementString:) method. Also I don't know how to detect the Caps Lock key. I am intending to so this because I want to perform some custom handling for some keys. Can someone help me with what is the way of detecting it under the recommendation from apple. Thanks in advance. Note: checking for replacementString parameter in shouldChangeCharactersIn method for empty does not help for backspace detection as it overlaps with other cases.
Topic: UI Frameworks SubTopic: UIKit Tags:
0
0
145
Mar ’25