VAPersistentNavigator

SwiftUI navigation with persistence.

To save the current state in applications using SwiftUI, there are various mechanisms, for example, @SceneStorage. However, due to the tight coupling to View, this complicates the possibility of separating the logic of navigation and state saving. Additionally, due to SwiftUI bugs, the built-in mechanisms do not work in some cases and lead to various issues.

For navigation, use PersistentNavigator with NavigatorScreenFactoryView, which synchronizes the state of the navigator and navigation.

To store the current navigation state, simply use any storage that implements the NavigatorStorage protocol. It doesn't matter if it's UserDefaults, a file, or encrypted storage.

Wrap everything in a NavigatorStoringView, which will save the current navigation state whenever any changes occur.

Example

typealias Navigator = PersistentViewNavigator<Destination, TabTag, SheetTag>

struct WindowView: View {
    let navigatorStorage: DefaultsNavigatorStorage
    let navigator: Navigator

    var body: some View {
        NavigatorStoringView(navigator: navigator, storage: navigatorStorage) {
            NavigatorScreenFactoryView(
                navigator: navigator, 
                buildView: { destination, navigator in
                    switch destination {
                    case .root: RootScreenView()
                    case .details: DetailsScreenView()
                    case .more: MoreScreenView()
                    }
                },
                buildTab: { tabTag in
                    switch tabTag {
                    case .first: Label("Tab 1", systemImage: "pencil.circle")
                    case .second: Label("Tab 2", systemImage: "square.and.pencil.circle")
                    case .none: EmptyView()
                    }
                },
                getDetents: { sheetTag in
                    switch sheetTag {
                    case .first: ([.medium, .large], .visible)
                    case .none: nil
                    }
                }
            )
        }
    }
}

More detailed information can be found in the example project.

Navigation methods

• push. Pushes a new Destination onto the NavigationStack.

• pop. Pops the top-most view off the NavigationStack, returning to the previous view. This is equivalent to tapping the back button in a standard navigation interface.

• pop(to:). Pops to a specified Destination in the NavigationStack. Useful for skipping intermediate views and jumping directly to a particular destination.

• popToRoot. Pops all views off the NavigationStack until the root view is reached. This resets the navigation stack to the initial state.

• replace(root:isPopToRoot:). Replaces the current root view in the NavigationStack with a new root Destination. Optionally, you can choose to pop to the root after replacement.

• present. Presents a new view as a sheet or fullScreenCover. This is used to modally display views on top of the current screen.

• dismissTop. Dismisses the top-most presented sheet or fullScreenCover, returning to the previous screen. This is commonly used to close modally presented views.

• dismiss(to:). Dismisses presented sheets or fullScreenCovers until a specified Destination or id is reached. This allows for more controlled dismissal in cases with multiple modal presentations.

• closeToInitial. Dismisses all presented sheets and fullScreenCovers, and resets the initial NavigationStack's navigation path to its root state. This is useful for completely resetting the navigation flow.

• close(to:). Attempts to navigate to and close all modally presented views, while navigating to a specified target Destination. This can be used to programmatically close views and move to a specific part of the navigation flow.

• close(where:). Similar to close(to:), but allows for specifying a predicate to determine which Destination to navigate to and close. This offers more flexibility in choosing the navigation target.

• onReplaceInitialNavigator. A callback that is triggered when the initial Navigator needs to be replaced with a new one. This allows for dynamic changes in the navigator setup.

• currentTab. A variable that holds the current tab in a TabView. This allows for both getting and setting the active tab programmatically.

• open(url:). Opens a given URL.

• open(window:). Opens a new window with the specified identifier.

• dismiss(window:). Dismisses a window with the specified identifier.

• pass(action:). Dispatches an action to the environment. Sends the provided action, making it available to any view that has registered an external action handler via .handle(_) or .handle<T>(_).

Navigation using NavigationLink

In addition to the Navigator's methods, you can also use SwiftUI's standard NavigationLink for navigation. This integrates seamlessly with the navigator as long as your destinations conform to PersistentDestination for PersistentNavigator or Hashable for TypedNavigator.

Example:

NavigationLink(value: Destination.player(file.url)) {
    FileView(file: file)
}

Environment values for simplified usage

struct FeatureDetailsScreenView: View {
    @Environment(\.persistentNavigator) var navigator

    var body: some View {
        VStack(spacing: 16) {
            Text("Current: Some separate feature flow details")
                .multilineTextAlignment(.center)
            Button("More") {
                navigator.present(.view(Destination.feature(.more)))
            }
            Button("Pop") {
                navigator.pop()
            }
            Button("Dismiss") {
                navigator.dismissTop()
            }
            Button("Close all") {
                navigator.closeToInitial()
            }
        }
    }
}

struct FeatureDetailsScreenView: View {
    @Environment(\.baseNavigator) var navigator

    var body: some View {
        VStack(spacing: 16) {
            Text("Current: Some separate feature flow details")
                .multilineTextAlignment(.center)
            Button("More") {
                navigator.present(.view(Destination.feature(.more)))
            }
            Button("Pop") {
                navigator.pop()
            }
            Button("Dismiss") {
                navigator.dismissTop()
            }
            Button("Close all") {
                navigator.closeToInitial()
            }
        }
    }
}

// If you need a concrete type of navigator

extension EnvironmentValues {
    var navigator: Navigator { persistentNavigator as! Navigator }
}

struct FeatureDetailsScreenView: View {
    @Environment(\.navigator) var navigator

    var body: some View {
        VStack(spacing: 16) {
            Text("Current: Some separate feature flow details")
                .multilineTextAlignment(.center)
            Button("More") {
                navigator.present(.view(Destination.feature(.more)))
            }
            Button("Pop") {
                navigator.pop()
            }
            Button("Dismiss") {
                navigator.dismissTop()
            }
            Button("Close all") {
                navigator.closeToInitial()
            }
        }
    }
}

More detailed information can be found in the example project.

Author

Volodymyr Andriienko, vandrjios@gmail.com

License

VAPersistentNavigator is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.