New SwiftUI Assist for MapKit in Xcode 15

At WWDC 2023, Apple introduced higher SwiftUI assist for MapKit. MapKit is a big API, so it’ll be some time earlier than we see a completely native SwiftUI model. Nevertheless it’s positively getting simpler to show an interactive map view in your app. Essentially the most widely-used function — annotations — will get a giant enchancment, and the brand new map type modifier requires nearly no work so as to add a ton of pizzazz to your app. Slowly however certainly, MapKit is buying a extra SwiftUI “contact and really feel”.

On the draw back, for those who’ve written a whole lot of Map code prior to now couple of years, you would possibly must rewrite a few of it, as Xcode 15 replaces all of the Xcode 12 Map initializers.

Getting Began

Click on Obtain supplies on the prime or backside of this text to obtain the starter mission. Open it in Xcode 15 beta to see what it’s important to work with.

PublicArt

I wrote the primary model of PublicArt in 2014 for my very first raywenderlich.com tutorial MapKit Tutorial: Getting Began. It was an replace of Ray’s unique MapKit tutorial, and Andrew Tetlaw up to date it once more in 2020.

In 2019, I tailored PublicArt for SwiftUI Tutorial: Navigation. Utilizing Xcode 11, I needed to create a struct MapView: UIViewRepresentable to show an MKMapView in a SwiftUI app.

Earlier this 12 months, Josh Steele up to date PublicArt to Xcode 14.2 for our SwiftUI Fundamentals course. That is the starter mission for this text: It makes use of the SwiftUI Map launched in Xcode 12.

For this text, the starter mission has iOS Deployment set to iOS 17.

Xcode 12 Map

Open LocationMap within the code editor. There’s an MKCoordinateRegion @State property. You go a binding to this into the Map initializer, together with an array of annotationItems, then show a MapMarker utilizing an paintings merchandise’s coordinate property. When the Map view seems, you set area.middle and area.span:

@State var area = MKCoordinateRegion()
  ...
Map(coordinateRegion: $area, annotationItems: [artwork]) { paintings in
  MapMarker(coordinate: paintings.coordinate)
}
.onAppear {
  area.middle = paintings.coordinate
  area.span = MKCoordinateSpan(latitudeDelta: 0.02, longitudeDelta: 0.02)
}

Refresh the preview or construct and run the app, and navigate to the map:

Xcode 15 Beta Map

This 12 months’s Map deprecates all of the Xcode 12 initializers. As a substitute of bindings to MKCoordinateRegion or MKMapRect, you create a Map with MapCameraBounds or MapCameraPosition.

You may create a MapCameraBounds worth with an MKCoordinateRegion or MKMapRect worth, plus minimal and most distances, or you may create one utilizing solely minimal and most distances.

Or you may create a Map utilizing no parameters in any respect!

Map & Marker

In LocationMap, remark out @State var area and substitute all of the Map code — Map(...) { ... }.onAppear { ... } — with this:

Map {
  Marker(paintings.title, coordinate: paintings.coordinate)
}

MapMarker is deprecated, changed by Marker, the place you show a label, which is a View.

You get the identical balloon marker, however the map has zoomed proper in to it. To point out roughly the identical area because the previous area, initialize Map with bounds:

Map(bounds:
      MapCameraBounds(minimumDistance: 4500,
                      maximumDistance: 4500))

Annotation

Along with Marker, there’s a brand new Annotation construction:

Annotation(paintings.title,
           coordinate: paintings.coordinate) {
  Picture(systemName: "particular person.bust")
    .padding(6)
    .foregroundStyle(.white)
    .background(Shade.blue)
}

An Annotation shows each a label View and a content material View, so you may customise your map pins. For instance, add these properties to Art work:

var image: String {
  change self-discipline {
  case "Monument", "Sculpture":
    return "particular person.bust"
  case "Mural":
    return "paintpalette"
  case "Plaque":
    return "particular person.textual content.rectangle"
  default:
    return "mappin"
  }
}

var background: Shade {
  change self-discipline {
  case "Monument", "Sculpture":
    return .blue
  case "Mural":
    return .mint
  case "Plaque":
    return .orange
  default:
    return .pink
  }
}

Every paintings has a self-discipline property, and these new properties specify symbols and background colours for the most-populated disciplines.

Now, substitute your Marker and Annotation code with:

Marker(paintings.title, systemImage: paintings.image,
       coordinate: paintings.coordinate)
.tint(paintings.background)

Annotation(paintings.title,
           coordinate: paintings.coordinate,
           anchor: .topLeading) {
  Picture(systemName: paintings.image)
    .padding(6)
    .foregroundStyle(.white)
    .background(paintings.background)
}

Just like the deprecated MapMarker, Marker helps you to specify tint.

To see these customized symbols and colours at work, change the index of the artData merchandise within the preview to 1. This paintings is a mural, so that you get mint-colored pins, and the annotation image is a paint palette:

You most likely wouldn’t need to use each Marker and Annotation for a similar location, however whereas they’re each there, see how one can modify the place of the annotation’s anchor:

Annotation(paintings.title,
           coordinate: paintings.coordinate,
           anchor: .topLeading)  // add this argument

The worth of anchor will be prime, backside, main, trailing or combos, or you may specify a CGPoint with x and y coordinates.

Map Fashion

And now for probably the greatest new options: mapStyle. Add this modifier to Map after its closing brace:

.mapStyle(.imagery(elevation: .sensible))

And alter bounds to zoom in:

Map(bounds:
      MapCameraBounds(minimumDistance: 1500,
                      maximumDistance: 1500))

Shift-Choice-drag to maneuver the map digital camera angle:

It’s also possible to add an initialPosition parameter to Map to set the map digital camera:

Map(
  initialPosition: .digital camera(MapCamera(
    centerCoordinate: paintings.coordinate,
    distance: 1200,
    heading: 90,
    pitch: 60)),
  bounds:
    MapCameraBounds(minimumDistance: 1500,
                    maximumDistance: 1500)) {

Now, you may take an aerial tour round Honolulu by altering the artData merchandise within the preview. For instance, artData[12]:

There are solely 17 artworks, so don’t transcend artData[16].

The place to Go From Right here?

Obtain the ultimate mission utilizing Obtain supplies on the prime or backside of this text.

On this article, you discovered about:

• The brand new approach to create a Map.
• The brand new Marker and Annotation constructions.
• The brand new MapStyle construction.
• The brand new MapCamera construction.

Meet MapKit for SwiftUI exhibits off a number of nifty options, together with:

• onMapCameraChange(frequency:), an occasion methodology of MapPitchButton.
• MapPolyline and MKRoute.
• MapCompass and MapScaleView.

We hope you loved this tutorial, and when you have any questions or feedback, please be part of the discussion board dialogue under!