Simon B. StøvringJan 28, 2023
Me porting Runestone from UIKit to AppKit.
Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 28, 2023

Yay! Runestone now works with... *Checks notes*... UIKit?? 🤨

In order to prepare for AppKit support, I had to rip the internals of Runestone apart and put it together again. For the first time in 36 hours, Runestone now works with UIKit again.

Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 29, 2023

So I now have an NSWindow with an NSView that receives keystrokes. That's like step 0 in building a text editor, right?

There's such a long way to go still before Runestone is rewritten in AppKit. I hope I'll eventually turn a corner where all my work from UIKit can be reused and I ✨magically✨ have an AppKit implementation.

Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 29, 2023
Runestone just rendered its first text using AppKit. Baby steps, y'all.
Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 30, 2023

The AppKit version of Runestone now supports scrolling the content.

This involves a bit more than just wrapping everything in an NSScrollView because Runestone only renders the lines within the viewport.

Baby steps, y'all.

Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 30, 2023
Time to add a caret that shows where characters will be inserted. I'm a little bummed that I have to implement this myself. We get that for free in UIKit.
Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 30, 2023
Runestone for AppKit now has a caret. Baby steps, y'all.
Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 30, 2023

I need to implement all moving within lines myself 😑

In the screenshot I'm logging the selectors that I don't handle but that AppKit expects me to handle. This is something we get (almost) for free in UIKit. Honestly, I really don't want to write this logic.

Show threadSteve ShepardJan 30, 2023
@simonbs NSTextView handles these, of course. Are you writing a a replacement NSView, or using Catalyst and finding that UITextInteraction in Catalyst doesn't handle them correctly?
Show threadSimon B. Støvring
@steveshepard I’m subclassing NSView and conforming to NSTextInputClient. I’m essentially trying to do what I’ve done with UIView and UITextInput but in AppKit.
Jan 30, 2023 at 5:59pmWeb
Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 30, 2023
@steveshepard I’m curious to know which approach you’re taking with Storting. Is it AppKit or Catalyst?
Show threadSteve ShepardJan 30, 2023
@simonbs On macOS, Storyist uses NSTextView. Writing a replacement for that is a lot of work. Unfortunately, NSTextInputClient only gets you a small subset of what UITextInput get you on iOS and there isn't a UITextInteraction equivalent.
Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 30, 2023
@steveshepard Yeah, it seems to be a lot of work. But you are also using Core Text on iOS, right? Can you reuse that with an NSTextView?
Show threadSteve ShepardJan 30, 2023
@simonbs Yes, CoreText on iOS, implemented in the days before TextKit came to the platform. I don't currently use CoreText on macOS because NSTextView is pretty complete (and extensible).
Show threadSimon B. StøvringJan 30, 2023
@steveshepard Hmmm… I fear I’ll end up with vastly different implementations if I go that route. Maybe I made a mistake to go with Core Text over TextKit when I started the project. TextKit just had some performance issues that I couldn’t live it 😕
Show threadSteve ShepardJan 30, 2023
@simonbs Yes, they'll be quite different. I think @krzyzanowskim has an NSTextView replacement, so if you're going to invest the effort, that might be a place to start.