Transitions in SwiftUI · objc.io

Throughout our SwiftUI Workshop we frequently discover that only a few folks appear to find out about transitions, regardless that they don’t seem to be very sophisticated and extremely helpful.

Transitions occur when a view is faraway from the view tree, or added to the view tree. Nevertheless, in the event you’ve carried out some SwiftUI, you should have seen that there isn’t a precise manner so as to add views to the view tree — there isn’t a addSubview(_:). As a substitute, you may solely add and take away views by way of the mixture of a state change and utilizing an if assertion (or change or ForEach). In different phrases, views are one way or the other added and eliminated for us mechanically, but transitions hearth solely as soon as. Earlier than we dive into the small print of this, let’s take into account a quite simple transition:

								struct ContentView: View {
    @State var seen = false
    var physique: some View {
        VStack {
            Toggle("Seen", isOn: $seen)
            if seen {
                Textual content("Hiya, world!")
            }
        }
        .animation(.default, worth: seen)
    }
}

							

Once we run the above code we are able to see the textual content fade out and in. That is the default transition (.opacity). When the view will get inserted into the view tree, it fades in, and as soon as it will get eliminated it fades out. Notice that if the physique executes once more, the view would not fade in once more until the situation within the if assertion adjustments.

To construct up a psychological mannequin of what is occurring, we are able to take into account the SwiftUI view tree for the above view:

SwiftUI views are ephemeral: the physique of ContentView will get executed and from it a render tree is created. This render tree is persistent throughout view updates, and it represents the precise views on display. As soon as the render tree is up to date, the worth for physique then goes away. Here is the render tree after the preliminary rendering:

As soon as we faucet the change, a state change occurs and the physique of ContentView executes once more. The prevailing render tree is then up to date. On this case, SwiftUI seen that the if situation modified from false to true, and it’ll insert our Textual content view into the render tree:

The change within the render tree is what triggers the transition. Transitions solely animate when the present transaction accommodates an animation. Within the instance above, the .animation name causes the transition to animate.

The render tree doesn’t truly exist with that identify or type, however is just a mannequin for understanding how SwiftUI works. We’re not utterly certain how this stuff are represented underneath the hood.

Once we change our view to have an if/else situation, issues get a bit extra attention-grabbing. Here is the code:

								struct ContentView: View {
    @State var seen = false
    var physique: some View {
        VStack {
            Toggle("Seen", isOn: $seen)
            if seen {
                Textual content("Hiya, world!")
            } else {
                Picture(systemName: "hand.wave")
            }
        }
        .animation(.default, worth: seen)
    }
}

							

Once we render the preliminary view tree, it can include a VStack with a Toggle and a Textual content. As soon as the state adjustments from false to true, the textual content is changed by a picture. Within the ephemeral view tree there may be at all times both the Textual content or the Picture, by no means each. Within the render tree nonetheless, through the animation the tree will include each views:

As a result of we use the default transition, it appears to be like just like the textual content fades into the picture and again. Nevertheless, you may consider them as separate transitions: the textual content has a elimination transition (fade out) and the picture has an insertion transition (fade in).

We’re not restricted to the default fade transition. For instance, here’s a transition that slides in from the forefront when a view is inserted, and removes the view by scaling it down:

								let transition = AnyTransition.uneven(insertion: .slide, elimination: .scale)

							

We will then mix it with an .opacity (fade) transition. The .mixed operator combines each transitions in parallel to get the next impact:

								let transition = AnyTransition.uneven(insertion: .slide, elimination: .scale).mixed(with: .opacity)
VStack {
    Toggle("Seen", isOn: $seen)
    if seen {
        Textual content("Hiya, world!")
            .transition(transition)
    } else {
        Textual content("Hiya world!")
            .transition(transition)
    }
}
.animation(.default.velocity(0.5), worth: seen)

							

Notice that within the pattern above, we used a seen worth to modify between the 2 Textual contents, regardless that they’re the identical. We will simplify the code a bit by utilizing id(_:). Each time the worth we cross to id adjustments, SwiftUI considers this to be a brand new view within the render tree. Once we mix this with our data of transitions, we are able to set off a transition simply by altering the id of a view. For instance, we are able to rewrite the pattern above:

								let transition = AnyTransition.uneven(insertion: .slide, elimination: .scale).mixed(with: .opacity)
VStack {
    Toggle("Seen", isOn: $seen)
    Textual content("Hiya, world!")
        .id(seen)
        .transition(transition)
}
.animation(.default.velocity(0.5), worth: seen)

							

Earlier than the animation, the textual content is current, and through the animation the newly inserted view (with id(false)) is transitioned in, and the previous view (with id(true)) is transitioned out. In different phrases: each views are current through the animation:

When the builtin transitions do not cowl your wants, you may as well create customized transitions. There may be the .modifier(lively:id) transition. When a view is not transitioning, the id modifier is utilized. When a view is eliminated, the animation interpolates in between the id modifier and the lively modifier earlier than eradicating the view utterly. Likewise, when a view is inserted it begins out with the lively modifier at the beginning of the animation, and ends with the id modifier on the finish of the animation.

Here is an instance of a favourite button with a customized transition. This is not an ideal implementation (we’d not hardcode the offsets and width of the button) nevertheless it does present what’s potential:

The complete code is accessible as a gist.

Generally when performing a transition you may see sudden side-effects. In our case we had been virtually at all times in a position to resolve these by wrapping the view we’re transitioning inside a container (for instance, a VStack or ZStack). This provides some “stability” to the view tree that may assist forestall glitches.

In essence, transitions aren’t very sophisticated. Nevertheless, reaching the consequence you need generally is a bit difficult typically. With a view to successfully work with transitions you need to perceive the distinction between the view tree and the render tree. And once you wish to have customized transitions, you additionally want to grasp how animations work. We cowl this in each our workshops and our ebook Pondering in SwiftUI.

If your organization is excited about a workshop on SwiftUI, do get in contact.