How to color the padding around a view

Paul Hudson @twostraws March 11th 2021

Updated for Xcode 12.5

The padding() modifier lets us add some spacing around a view, and the background() modifier lets us set a background color. However, the way you use them matters, so it’s important to be clear your goal in order to get the best results.

As an example, this creates a text view with a black background and white foreground, then adds system default padding to it:

Text("Hacking with Swift")
    .background(Color.red)
    .foregroundColor(.white)
    .padding()

And this adds system default padding then sets a black background color and a white foreground:

Text("Hacking with Swift")
    .padding()
    .background(Color.red)
    .foregroundColor(.white)

Those two pieces of code might look similar, but they yield different results because the order in which you apply modifiers matters. In the second example the view is padded then colored, which means the padding also gets colored black. In contrast, the first example colors then pads, so the padding remains uncolored.

So, if you want some text to have a background color wider than the text itself, make sure use the second code example – pad then color.