In my SwiftUI iOS app, I need to detect which key (and modifier flags – Command, Option, Shift, Control) a user presses, but I don't want to pre-register them using .keyboardShortcut(_:modifiers:). My use case is that keyboard shortcuts are user-configurable, so I need to capture the actual key + modifier combination dynamically at runtime and perform the appropriate action based on the user’s settings. Questions: What is the recommended way to detect arbitrary key + modifier combinations in SwiftUI on iOS? Is there a SwiftUI-native solution for this, or should I rely on UIPressesEvent and wrap it with UIViewControllerRepresentable? If UIKit bridging is necessary, what is the cleanest pattern for integrating this with SwiftUI views (e.g., Buttons)? Any official guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated!

I’m trying to understand the exact role of the return value in the UITextFieldDelegate method textFieldShouldReturn(_:). From my experiments in Xcode, I observed: Returning true vs false does not seem to cause any visible difference (e.g., the keyboard does not automatically dismiss either way). I know that in shouldChangeCharactersIn returning true allows the system to insert the character, and returning false prevents it. That’s clear. For textFieldShouldReturn, my current understanding is that returning true means “let the OS handle the Return press,” and returning false means “I’ll handle it myself.” My confusion: what is it that the OS actually does when it “handles” the Return press? Does UIKit do anything beyond calling this delegate method? If the system is supposed to dismiss the keyboard when returning true, why doesn’t it happen automatically? I’d appreciate clarification on the expected use of this return value — specifically, what default behavior the system performs (if any) when we return true. Thanks!

I am observing an unexpected behavior with external keyboard input on iOS. When I press Command + key (e.g., ⌘ + J) while a UITextView is focused, the system invokes pressesBegan(_ presses: Set<UIPress>, with event: UIPressesEvent?) twice: -> Once with the key press event without any modifier flags. -> A second time with the same key event but including the Command modifier flag. This behavior is checked on an iPad with an external keyboard. Additionally, I noticed that textView(_:shouldChangeTextIn:replacementText:) is not invoked in this case, even if I call super.pressesBegan for event propagation. Questions: Is it expected that pressesBegan fires twice for a Command + key combination? If so, what is the recommended way to distinguish between these two invocations? Should the UITextView delegate methods (like shouldChangeTextIn) be triggered for such key combinations, or is this by design?

Hi all, I’m subclassing UITextView and overriding insertText(_:) to intercept and log input: class TWTextView: UITextView { override func insertText(_ text: String) { print("insertText() : \(text)") super.insertText(text) } } This works fine, but I’ve noticed that insertText(_:) is invoked both when: The user types something in the text view (via hardware/software keyboard). I programmatically call myTextView.insertText("Hello") from my own code. I’d like to be able to distinguish between these two cases — i.e., know whether the call was triggered by the user or by my own programmatic insert. Is there any recommended way or system-provided signal to differentiate this? Thanks in advance!

Hi all, In my AppKit app, I sometimes simulate events programmatically, for example: func simulateKeyPress(characters: String, keyCode: UInt16) { guard let keyDown = NSEvent.keyEvent( with: .keyDown, location: .zero, modifierFlags: [], timestamp: 0, windowNumber: NSApp.mainWindow?.windowNumber ?? 0, context: nil, characters: characters, charactersIgnoringModifiers: characters, isARepeat: false, keyCode: keyCode ) else { return } NSApp.postEvent(keyDown, atStart: false) } At the same time, I install a local event monitor: NSEvent.addLocalMonitorForEvents(matching: .any) { event in // Ideally, detect whether this event came from a real user // (mouse, keyboard, trackpad, etc.) // or was programmatically generated via NSEvent + postEvent. return event } The problem: Events I generate with NSEvent.* factory methods and post using NSApp.postEvent look the same as real system events when received in the monitor. My question: Is there a supported way to tell whether an incoming NSEvent is system/user-generated vs programmatically posted?

I m trying to identify if my launched process is running on a local mac machine(desktop/laptop) or a virtual macOS X instance like AWS EC2, Azure, MacStadium etc. I am using the below check for this: 1 . If running on native Apple hardware, the returned value contains the model name of the hardware: $ sysctl -n hw.model Macmini8,1 On virtualized hardware, the value may contain the hypervisor name: $ sysctl -n hw.model VMware7,0 If the command output doesn't contain the "Mac" substring, the malware considers that it is running in a virtual machine. 2. Checking USB device vendor names The commands used: ioreg -rd1 -c IOUSBHostDevice | grep "USB Vendor Name" Sample output on native Apple hardware: "USB Vendor Name" = "Apple Inc." "USB Vendor Name" = "Apple Inc." "USB Vendor Name" = "Apple, Inc." On virtualized hardware, the value may contain the hypervisor name: "USB Vendor Name" = "VirtualBox" "USB Vendor Name" = "VirtualBox" A virtual machine can be detected by checking if the command output contains a hypervisor name, for example "VirtualBox", "VMware", etc. 3 . Checking the "IOPlatformExpertDevice" registry class The command used: ioreg -rd1 -c IOPlatformExpertDevice The following fields of the IOPlatformExpertDevice class can be checked in order to detect a virtual machine: I wanted to know can a combination of these be used to identify a process running on a Cloud VM with certainity?

I have created a universal link which I m using for two different applications in macOS. Below is the apple-app-site-association file for the same: { "applinks":{ "apps":[], "details":[ { "appID":"E5R4JF6D5K.com.demo.App1", "paths":[ "/app1/*" ] }, { "appID":"E5R4JF6D5K.world.demo.App2", "paths":[ "/app2/*" ] } ] } } After creating this file in my server and providing the same Url in my associated domain capability for both my application, when I try to launch my applications using the link then only the first application is getting launched everytime. The second application is never launched. for Url with http://custom.com/app1/... it redirects to first app. for Url with http://custom.com/app2/... it redirects to browser. I tried uninstalling the first app, but then it always directs in browser. I tried a separate url for both apps, and it works fine. I m not able to figure out the problem. The apple documentation says that it is possible to have two application linked to a common domain. Any help?

In IOS, when the device is kept idle for some time, the screen turns off and the device enters sleep mode. It also enters sleep mode when we press the power button to turn the screen off. In my application, I wanted to detect If the device has entered/exited the sleep mode. I have followed the below links but some of these ways like observing 'Darwin notifications' is no longer allowed by apple. Other ways consider the device being locked as sleep mode, which is not precisely correct. Is there a way to correctly determine this? Please share the apple documentation links if this is possible. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14191980/detect-screen-on-off-from-ios-service/14208787#14208787 https://nemecek.be/blog/104/checking-if-device-is-locked-or-sleeping-in-ios

I have added an "App Intents Extension" target to my main application in macOS. This generated the below two files: TWAppIntent.swift import AppIntents struct TWAppIntent: AppIntent { static var title: LocalizedStringResource = "TWAppIntent" static var parameterSummary: some ParameterSummary { Summary("Get information on \(\.$TWType)") } // we can have multiple parameter of diff types @Parameter(title: "TWType") var TWType: String func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { return .result(dialog: "Executed TWAppIntent.") } } TWAppIntentExtension.swift import AppIntents @main struct TWAppIntentExtension: AppIntentsExtension { } I m able to build the extension target and I my intent action is available in the shortcuts app. However, on launching a shortcut with the above created intent action. I m getting the below popups: From what I understand, I m getting this error because I have not added my 'TWAppIntent' to the TWAppIntentExtension.swift file which is the entry point for the extension, but I could not find any documentation around how to add it. Can someone help on how to do it or Is there something else that I m doing wrong?

I have a public swift function with the below declaration : public func InternalMain (_ pNumOfArgs : Int32, _ pCmdlineArgs : UnsafeMutablePointer<UnsafeMutablePointer<Int8>?>) -> Int32 {..} I need this function as public because I need to invoke in from a different library. But the above declaration produces an error in my generated swift header i.e '-swift.h' file because 'UnsafeMutablePointer<UnsafeMutablePointer?>' type cannot be represented in the swift generated header. Can someone help how do I get past this. This is a class independent function and I tried using the '@nonobj' to prevent this from getting in the generated header but it still gives an error.

I was looking out for the error handling for rendering the Widgets(like UIButton, UIVIew etc) on the screen in iOS. I am painting the screen programmatically using swift. Considering a simple Widget(like for say UIButton) when we try to create using its initializer and set some properties like 'setTitle' . These functions neither return any value upon success/failure nor in documentation they have mentioned about any exceptions which would be raised upon failure. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uibutton/settitle(_:for:) So, how to do error handling here in this scenarios, in case the apis fail to due some reason, like memory issue? There must be some scenarios for these api failure.

I have a UIKit application and it contains multiple UI components like UIWindow, UIView, UIButton, etc. I wanted to perform error handling for different OS calls in my application. For example, when creating a UIImage using init(named:) initialiser, the documentation clearly states that if the UIImage object cannot be created then the initialiser returns nil value. However, there are other UI components like UIButton (or like UIView), which when created using init(frame:) initialiser, the documentation does not mention for any return value. I wanted to know how to identify If the UIButton initialisation has failed? How is it that apple recommends should we handle these api's, If they fail to create a button. suppose If there is a case where it fails due to insufficient memory. Or is it that apple guarantees the Api's never fail?Is there some exception that is throw? I wanted somewhat detailed answer to these questions.

I wanted to perform simulation in my application as a self tour guide for my user. For this I want to programatically simulate various user interaction events like button click, keypress event in the UITextField or moving the cursor around in the textField. These are only few examples to state, it can be any user interaction event or other events. I wanted to know what is the apple recommendation on how should these simulations be performed? Is there something that apple offers like creating an event which can be directly executed for simulations. Is there some library available for this purpose?

I m trying to identify if my launched process is running on a local mac machine(desktop/laptop) or a virtual macOS X instance like AWS EC2, Azure, MacStadium etc. I have followed this link which searched for its limited providers in the output, but I m not bound to any limited providers and looking for a general solution which is applicable to all the providers. Is there some hardware/network/virtualization-related information that can be used to identify if the process is launched on a virtual MacOS instance? OR is there some system Information that I can use to be sure that my process is running on a local machine?

I have a need to interoperate between cpp and swift. Here when we return a 'String' type from swift to cpp, the type that we receive in cpp is 'swift::string'. I wanted to convert 'swift::string' to char* in cpp. Any help on how can this be achieved in cpp?