New macOS Features

Writing Tools

• Apps get the features automatically, but can customize behavior using new APIs

• Watch Get started with Writing Tools

Genmoji

• Genmoji are images, so some adoption may be needed

• Watch Bring expression to your app with Genmoji

Image Playground

• Instantiate ImagePlaygroundViewController and assign its delegate

• Can customize the behavior by specifying initial concepts and sourceImage

• Users can still choose different images and concepts as part of the experience

• Get the generated image from the app’s sandboxed temporary directory

• Consider adding Image Playground as an image source

Window Tiling

• Makes it very fast to move windows into some common arrangements

• Holding Option while dragging shows a preview of the window immediately

• Available in the Window > Move & Resize menu, and accessible using keyboard shortcuts

• Can resize windows at the same time while they are side by side

• Can select pre-built window arrangements from the Window menu

Making apps work best with Window Tiling

• Consider your window’s minimum and maximum sizes

• Use the resizeIncrements property

• When opening windows, consider the new cascadingReferenceFrame

  • This gets you an existing window’s untiled frame

  • Cascade newly-opened windows relative to that frame

More SwiftUI integrations

Build menus with SwiftUI

• New NSMenu subclass: NSHostingMenu

• Create the menu definition using SwiftUI, then instantiate NSHostingMenu using the SwiftUI view

• Use in any AppKit context accepting NSMenu

SwiftUI animations

• You can now use SwiftUI animations to animate AppKit views

• Use NSAnimationContext, passing in the SwiftUI animation type

• Interruptible by default

• For more info, watch Enhance your UI animations and transitions

API refinements

Context menus

• Use keyboard to open any context menus

• Control-Return by default

• Customize where the menu appears by implementing NSViewContentSelectionInfo protocol

Text and SF Symbols

Text highlighting

• Text highlighting is supported by default by NSTextView subclasses that support rich text

• Controlled by attributed string attributes (.textHighlight and .textHighlightColorScheme)

SF Symbols 6

• New effects: wiggle, rotate, breathe

• Repeating animations

• Dynamically replace the symbols badge and slash

• Check out What’s new in SF Symbols 6 and Animate symbols in your app

Saving documents

• Standard file format picker for NSSavePanel

• Set showsContentTypes property on NSSavePanel to true

• To provide custom display names for formats, implement a new delegate method

Customizable toolbars

Cursors

• System cursors are now available in SDK

• Access resize cursors using frameResize(position:directions:)

• Use zoomIn and zoomOut to indicate magnification

• Prefer using standard system cursors

• System cursors automatically support accessibility sizes and colors

NSToolbar

• Use allowsDisplayModeCustomization to let the user customize display modes of your toolbars, even if they are not customizable

  • Make sure that your toolbar has an identifier

  • Check that all your toolbar items have good labels

• Conditionally show and hide items using the new isHidden property

  • Useful for situationally meaningful changes

  • Hidden items still appear in the customization panel

Text entry suggestions

• Works on any NSTextField

• Get started by setting suggestionsDelegate property on NSTextField

• Can provide results synchronously or asynchronously

• Design tips

  • Ensure suggestions are responsive

  • Preserve muscle memory by making results predictable

  • Keep it simple

Next steps

• Adopt new macOS features, like Intelligence and Window Tiling

• Improve SwiftUI integration by using menus and animations

• Explore new APIs and consider adopting