How to store views as properties

Paul Hudson @twostraws September 3rd 2021

Updated for Xcode 13.0

If you have several views nested inside another view, you might find it useful to create properties for some or all of them to make your layout code easier. You can then reference those properties inline inside your view code, helping to keep it clear.

For example, this creates two text views as properties, then places them inside a VStack:

struct ContentView: View {
    let title = Text("Paul Hudson")
                    .bold()
    let subtitle = Text("Author")
                    .foregroundColor(.secondary)

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            title
            subtitle
        }
    }
}

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The text “Paul Hudson” in bold above the text “Author” in gray.

As you can see, just writing the property names in the stack is enough to place them.

However, even better is that you can attach modifiers to those property names, like this:

struct ContentView: View {
    let title = Text("Paul Hudson")
                    .bold()
    let subtitle = Text("Author")
                    .foregroundColor(.secondary)

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            title
                .foregroundColor(.red)
            subtitle
        }
    }
}

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The text “Paul Hudson” in bold red above the text “Author” in gray.