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What might a cross-platform GUI app look like with Swift? I'm assuming SwiftUI can't be used? Regardless, I'll definitely be reaching for Swift for one-off scri

What might a cross-platform GUI app look like with Swift? I'm assuming SwiftUI can't be used? Regardless, I'll definitely be reaching for Swift for one-off scripts. I've enjoyed the times I needed to use Swift for a React Native extension.

easeout 2y ago
In iOS 18, there is now a SwiftUICore framework that's separate from SwiftUI, which I imagine consumes it. I don't see the new one on the documentation site. If that becomes public in a year or so, maybe you'd be able to replace one of the two frameworks to implement your own view system atop the attribute graph and data flow bits.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  It's unlikely this will ever be made public. It's probably just there for organizational reasons, just like UIKit got made an umbrella framework for UIKitCore a while back.
lukeh 2y ago
There's not a consistent story but there are a bunch of options, principally divided into wrappers around existing libraries (SwiftGTK [1], Qlift [2], LVGLSwift [3]) and SwiftUI workalikes (Tokamak [4], SwiftCrossUI [5], AdwaitaSwit [6], there are others too). After exploring most of these for my use case (something that needs to run on an "embedded" RPi CM4 as well as iOS), I wrote a Swift bridge/runner for Flutter [7] which is working well. That enables me to write the UI in Dart and the business logic in Swift. I looked at all the other options below (that's how I know about them, indeed [3] I wrote as part of my research), in the end I felt that none of them were at the time of investigating sufficiently mature to base a product around. [1] https://github.com/rhx/SwiftGtk https://github.com/rhx/SwiftGtk [2] https://github.com/Longhanks/qlift https://github.com/Longhanks/qlift [3] https://github.com/PADL/LVGLSwift https://github.com/PADL/LVGLSwift [4] https://github.com/TokamakUI/Tokamak https://github.com/TokamakUI/Tokamak [5] https://github.com/stackotter/swift-cross-ui https://github.com/stackotter/swift-cross-ui [6] https://github.com/AparokshaUI/adwaita-swift https://github.com/AparokshaUI/adwaita-swift [7] https://github.com/PADL/FlutterSwift https://github.com/PADL/FlutterSwift
- prophesi 2y ago
  Late to respond, but thank you for the in-depth response! Your research into the different options judged by your use-case is greatly appreciated.

easeout 2y ago

In iOS 18, there is now a SwiftUICore framework that's separate from SwiftUI, which I imagine consumes it. I don't see the new one on the documentation site. If that becomes public in a year or so, maybe you'd be able to replace one of the two frameworks to implement your own view system atop the attribute graph and data flow bits.

saagarjha 2y ago
It's unlikely this will ever be made public. It's probably just there for organizational reasons, just like UIKit got made an umbrella framework for UIKitCore a while back.

lukeh 2y ago

There's not a consistent story but there are a bunch of options, principally divided into wrappers around existing libraries (SwiftGTK [1], Qlift [2], LVGLSwift [3]) and SwiftUI workalikes (Tokamak [4], SwiftCrossUI [5], AdwaitaSwit [6], there are others too). After exploring most of these for my use case (something that needs to run on an "embedded" RPi CM4 as well as iOS), I wrote a Swift bridge/runner for Flutter [7] which is working well. That enables me to write the UI in Dart and the business logic in Swift. I looked at all the other options below (that's how I know about them, indeed [3] I wrote as part of my research), in the end I felt that none of them were at the time of investigating sufficiently mature to base a product around. [1] https://github.com/rhx/SwiftGtk https://github.com/rhx/SwiftGtk [2] https://github.com/Longhanks/qlift https://github.com/Longhanks/qlift [3] https://github.com/PADL/LVGLSwift https://github.com/PADL/LVGLSwift [4] https://github.com/TokamakUI/Tokamak https://github.com/TokamakUI/Tokamak [5] https://github.com/stackotter/swift-cross-ui https://github.com/stackotter/swift-cross-ui [6] https://github.com/AparokshaUI/adwaita-swift https://github.com/AparokshaUI/adwaita-swift [7] https://github.com/PADL/FlutterSwift https://github.com/PADL/FlutterSwift

prophesi 2y ago
Late to respond, but thank you for the in-depth response! Your research into the different options judged by your use-case is greatly appreciated.