Rasterizing SwiftUI views from the Command-Line
Generating images programmatically can be used for many purposes. From generating simple memes (by overlaying some text over a given image asset), to composing image collages, applying filters, image transformations, charts, infographics, etc.
SwiftUI is a powerful DSL designed to make it very easy to generate complex views with code, while removing a great deal of boilerplate.
Good news is SwiftUI can be used from the command-line¹ with Swift Package Manager.
Here is how-to.
The basics: Hello World!
Let’s start by creating a new command-line executable
$ mkdir mytool && cd mytool
$ swift package init --type executable
$ swift run
Hello, world!
Generate the Xcode project and open in Xcode 11
$ swift package generate-xcodeproj
$ open mytool.xcodeproj
Add a SwiftUI view
Create a view with a red label and white background
import SwiftUI
struct MySwiftUIView : View {
var body: some View {
ZStack {
Color.white.edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
Text("Hello, world!").color(.red).font(.largeTitle)
}
}
}
#if DEBUG
struct MySwiftUIView_Previews : PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
MySwiftUIView()
}
}
#endif
Rasterize view and save to file
We will use this method to rasterize views to images:
func rasterize(view: NSView,
format: NSBitmapImageRep.FileType) -> Data? {
guard let bitmapRepresentation = view
.bitmapImageRepForCachingDisplay(in: view.bounds) else {
return nil
} bitmapRepresentation.size = view.bounds.size
view.cacheDisplay(in: view.bounds, to: bitmapRepresentation)
return bitmapRepresentation
.representation(using: format, properties: [:])
}
The following code instantiates the SwiftUI view, wrapped inside a NSHostingView
which is then rasterized and saved to disk
let wrapper = NSHostingView(rootView: MySwiftUIView())
wrapper.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 800, height: 450)let png = rasterize(view: wrapper, format: .png)
try png?.write(to: URL(fileURLWithPath: "test.png"))
Run the command and open in Preview
$ swift run && open test.png
The source code for this article is available on GitHub: https://github.com/eneko/ConsoleUI
[1] Using SwiftUI on the command-line requires macOS 10.15 (Catalina)