Hi all,

I was trying to figure out how to get a UIViewRepresentable of a PKCanvasView to work in SwiftUI with the ability for a parent view to manage undo and redo functionality. I spent a few days of research and found a solution that seems to work well. I wanted to post this here in case this can help someone in the future!

Here's the parent view that uses the environment UndoManager:

struct Writer: View {
    @Environment(\.undoManager) private var undoManager
    @State private var canvasView = PKCanvasView()

    var body: some View {
        VStack(spacing: 10) {
            Button("Clear") {
                canvasView.drawing = PKDrawing()
            }
            Button("Undo") {
                undoManager?.undo()
            }
            Button("Redo") {
                undoManager?.redo()
            }
            MyCanvas(canvasView: $canvasView)
        }
    }
}

Here's the PKCanvasView wrapped UIViewRepresentable:

struct MyCanvas: UIViewRepresentable {
    @Binding var canvasView: PKCanvasView

    func makeUIView(context: Context) -> PKCanvasView {
        canvasView.drawingPolicy = .anyInput
        canvasView.tool = PKInkingTool(.pen, color: .black, width: 15)
        return canvasView
    }

    func updateUIView(_ canvasView: PKCanvasView, context: Context) { }
}

Initially I tried various things using coordinators and PKCanvasViewDelegate functions. In the end, the solution is very simple and straightforward. In hindsight, I feel almost foolish for how long it took me to get this working. Hopefully this will prevent a future headache for someone else!

edit: I found that my original solution broke with iOS 14. Adding canvasView.drawingPolicy = .anyInput seemed to have fixed the problem.