Mastering ScrollView in SwiftUI. Target Behavior
This year we have massive additions to the ScrollView functionality in SwiftUI. Apple has added a bunch of new APIs to work with the ScrollView. This week we will talk about snapping behavior in ScrollView and how we can customize the scroll target.
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The SwiftUI framework provides the brand-new scrollTargetBehavior view modifier allowing us to specify a particular snapping behavior. Let’s take a look at a quick example.
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
ScrollView {
ForEach(0..<100) { number in
Text(verbatim: String(number))
.font(.largeTitle)
.frame(minWidth: 0, maxWidth: .infinity, minHeight: 300)
.background(Rectangle().fill(Color.green))
}
}
.scrollTargetBehavior(.paging)
}
}
Here we use the scrollTargetBehavior view modifier with the paging option to enable scrolling by pages. In this case, the ScrollView uses containing size to calculate the next visible target.
The paging instance of the PagingScrollTargetBehavior type conforms to the ScrollTargetBehavior protocol. Another type conforming to the ScrollTargetBehavior protocol is ViewAlignedScrollTargetBehavior.
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
ScrollView {
ForEach(0..<100) { number in
Text(verbatim: String(number))
.font(.largeTitle)
.frame(minWidth: 0, maxWidth: .infinity, minHeight: 300)
.background(Rectangle().fill(Color.green))
}
}
.scrollTargetBehavior(.viewAligned)
}
}
As you can see in the example above, we use the scrollTargetBehavior view modifier with the viewAligned option to enable view snapping. ScrollView automatically decelerates after scrolling to align with the first visible item in its viewport.
Usually, you define the ScrollView with the layout container inside, like LazyVGrid or LazyVStack. In this case, you should use the scrollTargetLayout view modifier on an instance of the LazyVGrid or LazyVStack to allow the ScrollView to target views inside the container.
struct ExampleScrollView: View {
var body: some View {
ScrollView {
LazyVStack {
ForEach(0..<100) { number in
Text(verbatim: String(number))
.font(.largeTitle)
.frame(minWidth: 0, maxWidth: .infinity, minHeight: 300)
.background(Rectangle().fill(Color.green))
}
}
.scrollTargetLayout()
}
.scrollTargetBehavior(.viewAligned)
}
}
You can also use the scrollTargetLayout view modifier to mark the layout container along with individual views in a single ScrollView.
struct AnotherExampleScrollView: View {
var body: some View {
ScrollView {
CustomHeaderView()
LazyVStack {
// some content here
}
.scrollTargetLayout()
CustomFooterView()
}
.scrollTargetBehavior(.viewAligned)
}
}
Remember that you can use the scrollTargetBehavior view modifier to set the horizontal and vertical scrolling target. It depends on how you allow axes on the ScrollView.
struct ExampleScrollView: View {
var body: some View {
ScrollView(.horizontal) {
LazyHStack {
ForEach(0..<100) { number in
Text(verbatim: String(number))
.font(.largeTitle)
.frame(minWidth: 0, maxWidth: .infinity, minHeight: 300)
.background(Rectangle().fill(Color.green))
}
}
.scrollTargetLayout()
}
.scrollTargetBehavior(.viewAligned)
}
}
The SwiftUI provides two options for scrolling target behavior: viewAligned and paging. But you can create your types by conforming to the ScrollTargetBehavior protocol.
struct CustomScrollTargetBehavior: ScrollTargetBehavior {
func updateTarget(_ target: inout ScrollTarget, context: TargetContext) {
if context.velocity.dy > 0 {
target.rect.origin.y = context.originalTarget.rect.maxY
} else if context.velocity.dy < 0 {
target.rect.origin.y = context.originalTarget.rect.minY
}
}
}
extension ScrollTargetBehavior where Self == CustomScrollTargetBehavior {
static var custom: CustomScrollTargetBehavior { .init() }
}
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
ScrollView {
ForEach(0..<100) { number in
Text(verbatim: String(number))
.font(.largeTitle)
.frame(minWidth: 0, maxWidth: .infinity, minHeight: 300)
.background(Rectangle().fill(Color.green))
}
}
.scrollTargetBehavior(.custom)
}
}
As you can see in the example above, we define the CustomScrollTargetBehavior type conforming to the ScrollTargetBehavior protocol. It needs to implement the only required function called updateTarget. The updateTarget function has two parameters target and context.
The target parameter is an inout instance of the ScrollTarget type and allows us to set the rect and anchor point for our target inside the ScrollView.
The context parameter is an instance of the ScrollTargetBehaviorContext type and provides information about the context in which the scroll target updates. It provides access to enabled axes, velocity, container size, content size, original target, etc.
To learn more about additions to the ScrollView, take a look at my “Mastering ScrollView in SwiftUI. Transitions” post.
With these additions, the ScrollView type gains a lot of power and allows us to build a super-custom experience for our users on all Apple platforms. I hope you enjoy the post. Feel free to follow me on Twitter and ask your questions related to this post. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!