julesforks / xnavigation

SwiftUI navigation without using NavigationLink.

XNavigation ↣

Take control over navigation in your SwiftUI app. Navigate without using NavigationLink.

Features

• Present View Controllers from your SwiftUI views
• Uses the UINavigationController already present when using a NavigationView
• Smooth transitions between navigation bars when presenting

Overview of Package

This package has 2 main components to it:

1. A Navigation class exposing the navigation methods. It's created at the start of the app and passed to SwiftUI views via environmentObject.

2. A DestinationView protocol used by SwiftUI Views that can be presented to expose their navigation bar title details.

There's a very detailed write-up on how this came to be and how it was built on Medium.

Getting Started

Create the Navigation object and passing it in to your root view in your SceneDelegate.

func scene(_ scene: UIScene, willConnectTo session: UISceneSession, options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) {
    let contentView = ContentView()

    // Use a UIHostingController as window root view controller.
    if let windowScene = scene as? UIWindowScene {
        let window = UIWindow(windowScene: windowScene)
        let navigation = Navigation(window: window)
        // here we pass in the navigation object to our app's root view.
        let rootView = UIHostingController(rootView: contentView.environmentObject(navigation))

        window.rootViewController = rootView

        self.window = window
        self.navigation = navigation

        window.makeKeyAndVisible()
    }
}

Use the navigation object in your root app view to present other views.

struct ContentView: View {
    @EnvironmentObject var navigation: Navigation

    var body: some View {
        NavigationView {
            Text("Hello, world!")
                .padding()
                .navigationBarTitle("Example", displayMode: .large)
                .toolbar {
                    ToolbarItemGroup(placement: .navigationBarTrailing) {
                        Button(action: {
                            navigation.pushView(SettingsView(), animated: true)
                        }) { Image(systemName: "gear") }
                    }
                }
        }
    }
}

Have your presented view conform to DestinationView to expose navigation title bar properties. You can use the custom .navigationBarTitle modifier to pass in your configuration object.

struct SettingsView: View, DestinationView {
    var navigationBarTitleConfiguration = NavigationBarTitleConfiguration(title: "Settings", displayMode: .inline)

    var body: some View {
        Text("Settings View")
            .navigationBarTitle(configuration: navigationBarTitleConfiguration)
    }
}

Using with SwiftUI Lifecycle

If using with a project that only has a SwiftUI lifecycle, you don't have a SceneDelegate to hook into. For this case we've created a helper WindowReader view that will expose the view so you can create your navigation object:

@main
struct ExampleApp: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            WindowReader { window in
                ExampleView()
                    .environmentObject(Navigation(window: window!))
            }
        }
    }
}

FAQ

Can I present a ViewController - i.e. a SFSafariViewController?

Yes. Instead of calling pushView which takes a SwiftUIView, call pushViewController, which works with UIViewController's.

Can I present a ViewController as a modal?

Yes. You can use the present(_ viewController: UIViewController) method in the navigation object.