Modern Settings

A SwiftUI package that brings a more modern settings window to macOS. The current SwiftUI settings window is still in an older style. This package matches the post Ventura Settings.

Localization

This package includes localization for 40 languages, this localization is used for the "Settings…" button that appears in your app's menu bar.

This is the same level of localization that is available from the default SwiftUI Settings Window.

See Sources/Tools/LocalizedSettingsNameGenerator for the generation code for localization.

Sample Code

To create a Modern Settings window, use the ModernSettings scene within your Main App. Within your Settings view, use a NavigationSplitView with a locked sidebar. To lock the sidebar, use the lockSidebar modifier on the main view within your sidebar.

@main
struct TextEditor: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        ModernSettings() {
            SettingsController()
        }
    }
}

struct SettingsController: View {
    var body: some View {
       NavigationSplitView {
           List {
               ForEach(0..<10) { i in
                   Text("index: \(i)")
               }
           }
           .lockSidebar()
       } detail: {
           Text("My Settings")
       }
   }
}

Locked Sidebar

To mimic other Modern macOS settings, the sidebar of the SettingsController needs to be locked. This can be done using the .lockSidebar modifier. This removes the sidebar toggle button, as well as locking it to a specific width.

struct SettingsController: View {
    var body: some View {
       NavigationSplitView {
            MySidebar()
                .lockSidebar(width: 250)
       } detail: {
           MyDetail()
       }
   }
}

Implementation Note

Modern macOS settings prevent the NavigationSplitView's sidebar from being collapsed. This is seemingly done through a private API. To get around this, ModernSettings uses a modifier, lockSidebar within the NavigationSplitView. This removes the toggle button and locking the width. To prevent the drag gesture on the sidebar, NSplitView:canCollapse is swizzled by the ModernSettings scene. This swizzling stops the sidebar from being collapse through any methods, which matches the behavior in Settings & Xcode.

Open Settings Window Programmatically

Like the built in SwiftUI Settings window, ModernSettings supports programmatic opening of the window. This can be accomplished using the openModernSettings environment variable:

struct OpenSettingsButton: View {
    @Environment(\.openModernSettings) private var openModernSettings
    
    var body: some View {
        Button("Open App Settings") {
            openModernSettings()
        }
    }
}

Change Settings Window Shortcut

To change the shortcut to open the ModernSettings window, you can use the settingsShortcut modifier.

For example, you can change the keyboard shortcut to cmd + shift + ,:

@main
struct TextEditor: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        ModernSettings() {
            SettingsController()
                 .settingsShortcut(",", [.command, .shift])
        }
    }
}

Credits

The swizzling solution for disabling NSplitView:canCollapse was inspired by the Ice app.