Topic

Apps

A collection of 15 issues

SwiftUI's handling of the Mac menu bar is still pretty bad

While trying out a few things around the SwiftUI document handling and lifecycle in a macOS application, I came across a pretty bad issue. Not only did it not do as the API promised, it actually messed with the menu in ways that would be unrecoverable to a SwiftUI lifecycle

SwiftUI's New Geometry Modifiers & Best Practices: onGeometryChange, onScrollGeometryChange, and More

SwiftUI has recently introduced a family of geometry observation APIs: onGeometryChange, onScrollGeometryChange, and onScrollPhaseChange. The former is back deployed all the way back to iOS 16 and macOS 13 Ventura. These new modifiers are a pretty big deal in a few ways.

SwiftUI FocusedValue, macOS Menus, and the Responder Chain

On macOS, you can use the SwiftUI FocusedValue API to achieve a behavior similar to that of the Responder Chain, including autoenabling menu items.

The Application Model is Outdated

The fundamental way we interact with computers hasn’t really changed since the 1980s. Sure, we’ve added more layers of complexity, polish, and buttons you wanna lick – but are things really that different?

The Bleakness of Chat Interfaces

If the future of user interfaces is text fields and chat bubbles, it’s probably a future I don’t wanna participate in shaping. But then of course it’s not.