Structuring platform specific code in SwiftUI

Xcode provides a cross-platform app template in SwiftUI which can be built for macOS and iOS. This template includes a Shared folder which is meant for code used both on macOS and iOS. Many SwiftUI types and functions work both on macOS and iOS but along with developing an app we’ll encounter cases where we need to specialize per platform. When I was building a multiplatform app then the very first thing I encountered was list styles. On macOS I wanted to use a different list style than on iOS (SidebarListStyle vs GroupedListStyle). Therefore, let’s take this as an example and see what are the ways how to handle this.

Compile time checks

The first way is to add compile time checks directly to the UI code. Swift provides #if os() for branching out code which should only be compiled on the specified platform. One downside of this approach is that it can make the code pretty long in the view body when we have multiple platform specific branches. In those cases, it might make sense to have separate functions which just contain the #if os() branch. But in the example below, we just have a listStyle view modifier, which is configured differently on macOS and iOS.

	struct ContentView: View {
	@State var items = [1, 2, 3]
	var body: some View {
	List {
	ForEach(items, id: \.self) { item in
	Text("\(item)")
	}
	}
	#if os(macOS)
	.listStyle(SidebarListStyle())
	#else
	.listStyle(GroupedListStyle())
	#endif
	}
	}

view raw ContentView.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Platform specific extensions

Another way for handling platform specific code is to create a separate files which are only included to platform targets. In this concrete case, those files contain a view extension and define a contentListStyle property which returns a list style. ContentView.swift file can access the property and when we are building for macOS then ContentView+Mac.swift is compiled and when building for iOS then ContentView+iOS.swift. I would recommend creating separate folders for platform specific code. For example, the project folders could be Shared, Mac, and iOS. Separate folders give a clear overview where the platform specific code is.

	struct ContentView: View {
	@State var items = [1, 2, 3]
	var body: some View {
	List {
	ForEach(items, id: \.self) { item in
	Text("\(item)")
	}
	}
	.listStyle(contentListStyle)
	}
	}

view raw ContentView.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	extension ContentView {
	var contentListStyle: GroupedListStyle {
	return GroupedListStyle()
	}
	}

view raw ContentView+iOS.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	extension ContentView {
	var contentListStyle: SidebarListStyle {
	return SidebarListStyle()
	}
	}

view raw ContentView+Mac.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Summary

SwiftUI code can be shared most of the time between platforms. Sometimes we’ll need to configure the shared code per platform or use platform specific APIs. Hopefully those two approaches will give some flexibility on handling such code.

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