iPad apps can have multiple windows but without the enormous flexibility that macOS apps can have. Windows are a major area where the platforms diverge.

Your job as a macOS developer is to understand the expectations of the users on the macOS platform so that your app ends up looking like a macOS app and not like an iOS port. The differences are in how SwiftUI displays the different views based on the selected platform. Swift and SwiftUI are extremely similar across all Apple’s platforms. This serves to emphasize an important point. Interestingly, these two files are absolutely identical to the same two files you’d get if you created an iOS app from the basic iOS app template. Quit the app and go back to look at the Xcode project, which has two Swift files: The only control on this window is a static Text view, so there is nothing to edit, but the Edit menu is there and ready for action, as are all the other standard menus that people expect to see in a Mac app.

All the usual window and tab tools are already there and available to you. When you have a few windows open, take a look at the Window menu. In fact, you can open lots of new windows. You can close the window and open a new one. You can resize the window by a small amount, minimize it, make it full screen (which looks rather odd at this stage). At first glance, it might seem that you’ve very little - just a rather small window showing the default “Hello, world!” text - but take a closer look: Click Next again and save your new project.īefore making any changes, build and run the app to see what features you already have.

Select SwiftUI for the interface and Swift for the language. Start Xcode and create a new project.Ĭhoose the macOS App template, click Next and name the app OnThisDay. So at last you get to the fun bit - creating your own macOS app. You’re going to use that style in the app you’ll build in this chapter. In this chapter, you’ll get to use all that preparatory work as you create the main window for your app.Ī great number of macOS apps like Finder, Mail and even Xcode, have a window design with a navigation side bar on the left and a larger detail view on the right. You worked out how to parse the incoming JSON, and you designed the data models. In the previous chapter, you looked at the API that will provide the data for the On This Day app. Working with Timers, Alerts & Notifications

7.2 Converting the App into a Menu Bar App.

Section II: Building a Menu Bar App Section 2: 3 chapters Show chapters Hide chapters Section I: Your First App: On This Day Section 1: 6 chapters Show chapters Hide chapters

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