UIToolbar in SwiftUI

06 Jul 2020 ⋅ 2 min read ⋅ SwiftUI UIToolbar Toolbar WWDC20

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Table of Contents

In iOS 14, we finally have a way to set a toolbar for a view in a navigation view.

UIKit

In UIKIt, we can add toolbar items for a view controller under navigation stack by setting toolbarItems with bar button items that you want. Then set isToolbarHidden = false on a navigation controller that you wish to show a toolbar.

let archive = UIBarButtonItem(image: UIImage(systemName: "archivebox"), style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
let spacer = UIBarButtonItem(barButtonSystemItem: .flexibleSpace, target: nil, action: nil)
let add = UIBarButtonItem(image: UIImage(systemName: "square.and.pencil"), style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
setToolbarItems([archive, spacer, add], animated: false) // <1>
navigationController?.isToolbarHidden = false // <2>

<1> Set toolbar items to a view controller.
<2> Set navigation controller to show toolbar.

SwiftUI

We can finally do this on iOS 14 with a new modifier in SwiftUI, toolbar(), which lets us add a bar button just like we did in UIKit. By wrapping any view in ToolbarItem and put that under toolbar modifier, it will show up when that view embedded inside a NavigationView.

NavigationView {
    Text("Hello, SwiftUI!")
        .toolbar {            
            ToolbarItem(placement: .bottomBar) {
                Button(action: {}, label: {
                    Image(systemName: "archivebox")
                })
            }
            ToolbarItem(placement: .bottomBar) {
                Spacer()
            }
            ToolbarItem(placement: .bottomBar) {
                Button(action: {}, label: {                    
                    Image(systemName: "square.and.pencil")
                })
            }
            
        }
}

You can also group all the buttons inside a single ToolbarItem like this:

NavigationView {
    Text("Hello, SwiftUI!")
        .toolbar {            
            ToolbarItem(placement: .bottomBar) {
                HStack {
                    Button(action: {}, label: {
                        Image(systemName: "archivebox")
                    })
                    Spacer()
                    Button(action: {}, label: {
                        
                        Image(systemName: "square.and.pencil")
                    })
                }
            }            
        }
}

Related Resources

• UIKit
  • UIToolbar
  • setToolbarHidden(_:animated:)
  • setToolbarItems(_:animated:)
• SwiftUI
  • ToolbarItem
  • toolbar(items:)

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