{"id":35965,"date":"2022-05-23T15:26:30","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T19:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=35965"},"modified":"2022-07-12T15:00:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T19:00:32","slug":"how-to-open-a-window-in-swiftui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/23\/how-to-open-a-window-in-swiftui\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Open a Window in SwiftUI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob N<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I’d like to show a second window with different content in a SwiftUI app on macOS. I can’t find any documentation on this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Malcolm Hall<\/a> (tweet<\/a>, forum<\/a>):<\/p>\n

In your ContentView<\/code> create a button and open a URL for your app and another View e.g. Viewer<\/code> to be shown in the window we will open[…]<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

In your App<\/code> add another WindowGroup<\/code> for your viewer and set it to enable handling of external launch events (an internal event in our case).<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Now in Project->Info->URL Types type in myappname in the URL Schemes field (and the identifier field too) to register our app with the system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Tony Arnold<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Is that a workaround? That’s a workaround for missing API, right? 😳<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Malcolm Hall<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

No, its a declarative state-driven API that handles the reason why you would want a new window. You aren’t going to get an imperative open window in SwiftUI because that’s not how it is designed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Marcin Krzyzanowski<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I’m not convinced this is designed. It’s more like something that happens, but doesn’t really is well thought for the scenario where the app needs to open multiple windows. URL cannot be the way. It’s missing window state management. Windows are hierarchical. This is not.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

It’s great that there is<\/em> a way to do this without calling into AppKit<\/a>, but using URLs seems gross.<\/p>\n\n

Khoa Pham<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A common trick is to use an NSViewRepresentable<\/code> to get underlying view.window<\/code> and attach this to our SwiftUI view<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

For a common macOS SwiftUI app with a search bar on the toolbar and a normal settings screen, here’s how I usually do<\/p>\n

Setup NSWindow programmatically<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n