SwiftUI: Introducing the New User Interface Development Framework from Apple

Apple just launched a new SwiftUI framework, a sophisticated UI development framework which by grabbing the core advantages of Swift took ease of development to a new height. (Image Source: NSScreencast)

This new framework by using declarative paradigms allows developers to build equally sophisticated UIs with a lot lesser amount of code and in less time. Before we explain the significant highlights of this new UI development framework, let us have a look at some of its important characteristics.

• With SwiftUI, developers can avail a real-time UI development environment right inside the Xcode. When building the app with XCode, the developers only need to mention the desired components of the UI, and the same instantly makes an appearance on the Xcode interface.
• App developers can easily implement thanks to this declarative framework, an array of automatic behaviours. For example, developers can easily incorporate Dark Mode without needing to write any code for the same.
• SwiftUI is fully capable of creating interfaces that can run across all Apple devices pertaining to the iOS, tvOS, macOS and watchOS.
• When it comes to the syntax, SwiftUI uses a highly declarative syntax mentioning clearly the things that the respective UI should do.
• SwiftUI also comes with a whole array of design tools that allow drag and drop action for building a UI.
• SwiftUI also allows creating several previews of the UI to evaluate the sample data and configure the features and capabilities as per requirements.

SwiftUI is Fully Compatible with Xcode 11

The new batch of UI design and development tools packed with SwiftUI actually aligns well with the latest Xcode 11. Xcode 11 allows incorporating any user interface of choice quickly and often without really needing to write any code.

To find an app developer for your next iOS project, you can now concentrate on the latest Swift and Xcode skills. The best thing is the code of the Swift gets automatically updated, and any change brought in the code is instantly reflected through the user interface.

The visual design tool gets updated with the changes in the code almost with an instant effect. This alignment and ability to move between design and coding is a crucial attribute of SwiftUI.

New ARKit3

The launch of SwiftUI also gets the boost of latest ARKit3 from Apple. The Motion Capture feature allows developers to easily integrate the movement of the people right in their apps. Another new feature if the kit called People Occlusion will help to produce more naturally immersive AR content for the app users.

The new ARKit3 also provides full support for the simultaneous use of front and back cameras besides supporting collaborative photography and photo editing sessions. Altogether, the new SwiftUI coupled up with the ARKit 3 will provide everything to deliver a more shared user experience.

Easy Portability of iPad Apps to MacOS

Another major plus point of the new SwiftUI is the easy portability of iPad apps to Mac supported devices. The Xcode allows the developers to enter inside an iPad app and tick boxes to add the Mac And Windows features automatically for respective devices.

By checking this box, the existing iPad app when unleashing on Mac or Windows will automatically flaunt the platform-specific features and design elements. This will help to deliver a highly platform-optimised look, feel and capabilities. The best thing is, developers now will be able to share the same code across both Mac and iOS apps.

Some Useful Tips for Using SwiftUI

Now that you have a full-bodied UI development framework like SwiftUI, you should listen to the experts about using SwiftUI successfully for your apps. Here we are going to help you with a few useful tips.

Taking Advantage of the Private State to Control Access

While State in the context of apps refers to the simple properties and the ObjectBinding refers to complex properties shared among the viewers, the @EnvironmentObject refers to properties shared across multiple views. By following the recommendation of Apple to mark State properties as private, you can easily make them accessible specifically in certain locations, not everywhere.

Using Semantic and Adaptive Colours

One of the core capabilities of the SwiftUI is that it allows working with out of the box UI themes. This clearly shows that the SwiftUI, by default, offers both semantic and adaptive colours. This is why, before using custom colours, you need to check the availability of them in the default set of SwiftUI colours.

Split a Large View among Parts 

SwiftUI also allows developers to split a large view into smaller parts while coding them separately and bringing them together to get the desired result. When combining the separately composed parts together, one gets the same result, and no difference in terms of output is observed. On the one hand, this actually eliminates the hierarchy of views, and on the other hand, this actually makes maintenance tasks easier.

Build Custom Modifiers

The SwiftUI offers everything to incorporate twists into custom look and feel of the app. You can use an identical set of view modifiers for several apps until you realised you need customisation to break through the monotony and repetition. Instead of repetition of code that creates similar text padding, text size and colour scheme for background and foreground, you can create a fresh custom modifier.

Conclusion

SwiftUI brought developers a fresh new change to build apps for the entire Apple ecosystem of devices with more user-centric and device-optimised user experience. The developers can deliver more engaging and immersive user experience while writing far less code.