UIWindow not showing over content in iOS 13

Question

I am upgrading my app to use the new UIScene patterns as defined in iOS 13, however a critical part of the app has stopped working. I have been using a UI

Answer 1

Here's a bit hacky way of holding a strong reference to created UIWindow and releasing it after presented view controller is dismissed and deallocated. Just make sure you don't make reference cycles.

private final class WindowHoldingViewController: UIViewController {

    private var window: UIWindow?

    convenience init(window: UIWindow) {
        self.init()

        self.window = window
    }

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        view.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
    }

    override func present(_ viewControllerToPresent: UIViewController, animated flag: Bool, completion: (() -> Void)? = nil) {
        let view = DeallocatingView()
        view.onDeinit = { [weak self] in
            self?.window = nil
        }
        viewControllerToPresent.view.addSubview(view)

        super.present(viewControllerToPresent, animated: flag, completion: completion)
    }

    private final class DeallocatingView: UIView {

        var onDeinit: (() -> Void)?

        deinit {
            onDeinit?()
        }
    }
}

Usage:

let vcToPresent: UIViewController = ...
let window = UIWindow() // or create via window scene
...
window.rootViewController = WindowHoldingViewController(window: window)
...
window.rootViewController?.present(vcToPresent, animated: animated, completion: completion)