CrappKit

For times when you need to use AppKit UI but wish it was more declarative like SwiftUI.

Enter CrappKit: The (not too) crappy pseudo-declarative AppKit UI builder.

This library was built for convenience and is not exhaustive but covers a lot of essential use cases. No bindings or fancy tricks are involved; this is not meant to replace SwiftUI. This merely provides declarative sugar to build UI programmatically and reduce the boilerplate necessary.

class ViewController: NSViewController {
    weak var textField: NSTextField?
    weak var datePicker: NSDatePicker?
    
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        view = body
    }
    
    var body: some NSView {
        CKVStack(distribution: .equalSpacing) {
            CKText("Hello world")
            
            CKTextField(placeholder: "Enter some text here")
                .constraints(width: 200)
                .store(in: &textField)
            
            CKHStack {
                CKButton(title: "One") { print("One") }
                CKButton(title: "Two") { print("Two") }
            }
            
            MyView()
            
            NSDatePicker()
                .store(in: &datePicker)
        }
        .constraints(padding: .standardToSuperview())
    }
}

func MyView() -> some NSView {
    CKHStack {
        CKText("Hello")
        CKText("World")
    }
}

Usage

Add to your project using Swift Package Manager and import CrappKit.

See the Demo project for usage examples.

DSL Types

Any NSView subclass may be used directly in the view builder, but a number of intuitive convenience classes and constructors are provided.

• CKVStack - vertical NSStackView
• CKHStack - horizontal NSStackView
• CKText - NSTextField single & multi-line labels, and attributed string
• CKTextField - editable NSTextField
• CKButton - NSButton with action closure
• CKPathControl - NSPathControl with properties and action closure

NSView Modifiers

Various NSView modifiers are provided.

NSView

• autoresizingMask(_:) - set autoresizing mask for the view
• disableAutoresizingMask() - disable autoresizing mask for the view
• frame(rect:) - set view rect
• frame(size:) - set view size
• focusRingType(_:) - set focus ring type for view
• withView { view in } - modify the view within a closure
• store(in:) - overwrites the passed variable with a reference to the view, usually a weak var akin to Interface Builder's IBOutlet

NSTextField

• multilineTextAlignment(:_) - set alignment for wrapping text

NSView NSLayoutConstraint Modifiers

Various NSView modifiers to apply NSLayoutConstraints are provided.

• constraints(height:width:) - adds static height and/or width constraints
• constraints(minHeight:minWidth:) - adds minimum height and/or width constraints
• constraints(maxHeight:maxWidth:) - adds maximum height and/or width constraints
• constraints(padding:) - wraps the view in an enclosing NSView with the given padding insets
• constraintsPriority(_:) - sets the priority for all constraints applied to the view
• constraints(insets:) - adds constraints to the view's four sides (experimental)
• constraints(centerX:centerY:) - adds center X and/or Y constraints (experimental)

Roadmap

• More convenience views and view modifiers
• Support for UIKit on iOS