News · Dec 23, 2021

Hello Swift Playgrounds 4!

Export your designs to the new Apple development app.

The world of iPad app development changed forever with the release of Swift Playgrounds 4. We couldn’t be more excited for this new app. Today, DetailsPro is also announcing expanded support for Swift Playgrounds.

What does DetailsPro support?

  1. Exporting designs to Swift Playgrounds.
  2. Creating new Swift Playgrounds 4 apps right from DetailsPro, which open directly in Swift Playgrounds.
  3. Exporting to the classic standalone Swift Playgrounds format or the new Swift Playgrounds 4 app format.
  4. Exporting multiple designs at once by exporting an entire folder.
  5. Exporting all SwiftUI design elements, modifiers, SF Symbols, and image assets.

How does DetailsPro make a good companion for Swift Playgrounds?

DetailsPro is your design companion for creating apps on the iPad. Whether you’re a designer focused on elevating the visual design of your company’s app, or a developer mocking up the next screen you’re about to build, you can use DetailsPro to create SwiftUI designs quickly and easily. The DetailsPro app was made for the single purpose of helping to complete visual design work for iOS and gives you an environment and UI that’s focused on that task. While you can make mockups and prototypes in Swift Playgrounds, the process isn’t as easy or as focused as the experience in DetailsPro.

How to export a design to Swift Playgrounds

Exporting a design from the DetailsPro app is easy and quick.

  1. Open your design file.
  2. Tap on the “…” More menu.
  3. Tap Export as Swift Playground… if you want a classic, standalone Swift Playground.
  4. Tap Export as Swift Playgrounds App… if you want a new Swift Playgrounds 4 format app (This is the right starting point if you want to eventually submit your app to the App Store).
A new Export as Swift Playgrounds App feature makes it easy to create real SwiftUI apps with your designs as their starting points.

Here’s how a design looks when you’re working on it in the DetailsPro app:

Working on a SwiftUI design file in the DetailsPro app.

Here’s how that same design looks after it’s been exported to Swift Playgrounds:

Opening the Swift Playgrounds 4 app that was made by exporting that design file.

DetailsPro and Swift Playgrounds make app design a lot faster and easier

Before the DetailsPro app was released, to do any sort of SwiftUI development you had to open Xcode, go through all of the dialogs, and create some sort of project each time.

Now you can open the DetailsPro app and be working on a new design in less than a few seconds. No project setups, no configuration, no coding knowledge necessary.

And now all of this has been pushed further with the release of Swift Playgrounds 4. Developers can make real apps and publish them to the App Store and, since designs made in DetailsPro are already made as native SwiftUI, exporting designs to Swift Playgrounds is accurate, easy, and instant.

The DetailsPro app can take any of your designs and export them as a Swift Playgrounds app because all designs made in DetailsPro are already native SwiftUI.

Requirements

Make sure your iPad is upgraded to iOS 15.2 or newer and you have DetailsPro 3.19.0 or newer.

Download Swift Playgrounds 4 here.
Download DetailsPro here.