How to give back swipe gesture in SwiftUI the same behaviour as in UIKit (interactivePopGestureRecognizer)

Question

The interactive pop gesture recognizer should allow the user to go back the the previous view in navigation stack when they swipe further than half the screen (or something

Answer 1

You can do this by descending into UIKit and using your own UINavigationController.

First create a SwipeNavigationController file:

import UIKit
import SwiftUI

final class SwipeNavigationController: UINavigationController {

    // MARK: - Lifecycle

    override init(rootViewController: UIViewController) {
        super.init(rootViewController: rootViewController)
    }

    override init(nibName nibNameOrNil: String?, bundle nibBundleOrNil: Bundle?) {
        super.init(nibName: nibNameOrNil, bundle: nibBundleOrNil)

        delegate = self
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)

        delegate = self
    }

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        // This needs to be in here, not in init
        interactivePopGestureRecognizer?.delegate = self
    }

    deinit {
        delegate = nil
        interactivePopGestureRecognizer?.delegate = nil
    }

    // MARK: - Overrides

    override func pushViewController(_ viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        duringPushAnimation = true

        super.pushViewController(viewController, animated: animated)
    }

    var duringPushAnimation = false

    // MARK: - Custom Functions

    func pushSwipeBackView(_ content: Content) where Content: View {
        let hostingController = SwipeBackHostingController(rootView: content)
        self.delegate = hostingController
        self.pushViewController(hostingController, animated: true)
    }

}

// MARK: - UINavigationControllerDelegate

extension SwipeNavigationController: UINavigationControllerDelegate {

    func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, didShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        guard let swipeNavigationController = navigationController as? SwipeNavigationController else { return }

        swipeNavigationController.duringPushAnimation = false
    }

}

// MARK: - UIGestureRecognizerDelegate

extension SwipeNavigationController: UIGestureRecognizerDelegate {

    func gestureRecognizerShouldBegin(_ gestureRecognizer: UIGestureRecognizer) -> Bool {
        guard gestureRecognizer == interactivePopGestureRecognizer else {
            return true // default value
        }

        // Disable pop gesture in two situations:
        // 1) when the pop animation is in progress
        // 2) when user swipes quickly a couple of times and animations don't have time to be performed
        let result = viewControllers.count > 1 && duringPushAnimation == false
        return result
    }
}

This is the same SwipeNavigationController provided here, with the addition of the pushSwipeBackView() function.

This function requires a SwipeBackHostingController which we define as

import SwiftUI

class SwipeBackHostingController: UIHostingController, UINavigationControllerDelegate {
    func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, didShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        guard let swipeNavigationController = navigationController as? SwipeNavigationController else { return }
        swipeNavigationController.duringPushAnimation = false
    }

    override func viewWillDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewWillDisappear(animated)

        guard let swipeNavigationController = navigationController as? SwipeNavigationController else { return }
        swipeNavigationController.delegate = nil
    }
}

We then set up the app's SceneDelegate to use the SwipeNavigationController:

    if let windowScene = scene as? UIWindowScene {
        let window = UIWindow(windowScene: windowScene)
        let hostingController = UIHostingController(rootView: ContentView())
        window.rootViewController = SwipeNavigationController(rootViewController: hostingController)
        self.window = window
        window.makeKeyAndVisible()
    }

Finally use it in your ContentView:

struct ContentView: View {
    func navController() -> SwipeNavigationController {
        return UIApplication.shared.windows[0].rootViewController! as! SwipeNavigationController
    }

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("SwiftUI")
                .onTapGesture {
                    self.navController().pushSwipeBackView(Text("Detail"))
            }
        }.onAppear {
            self.navController().navigationBar.topItem?.title = "Swift UI"
        }.edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.top)
    }
}