AppDelegate and SceneDelegate when supporting iOS 12 and 13

Question

I need to support iOS 12 and iOS 13.

Should I be duplicating code between AppDelegate and SceneDelegate?

For example:

func scene(_ scene: UIScene, willConnectTo session: UISceneSession, options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) {
    guard let windowScene = (scene as? UIWindowScene) else { return }
    let window = UIWindow(windowScene: windowScene)

    window.rootViewController = HomeViewController()
    window.makeKeyAndVisible()

    self.window = window
}

and

func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
    let window = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
    window.rootViewController = HomeViewController()
    window.makeKeyAndVisible()

    self.window = window

    return true
}

If I don't do this, in 1 version I end up with a black screen, but if I do and print in the viewDidLoad method of HomeViewController I can see it is called twice.

I update my didFinishLaunchingWithOptions and I can see in iOS13 it is still called twice.

func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {

    guard #available(iOS 12, *) else { return true }

    let window = UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)
    window.rootViewController = HomeViewController()
    window.makeKeyAndVisible()

    self.window = window

    return true
}

Tightfisted

See https://mcmap.net/q/95360/-black-screen-after-adding-scenedelegate-and-updating-info-plist – Haggadah

You can also just skip the SceneDelegate completely, there's no inherit need for it if you're supporting iOS 12. – Chez

Just a point to note, adopting scene delegate might be necessary if you are planning on building a modern Catalyst app. Features like the Segmented bar on macOS need you to adopt Scene Delegate. – Yeah

Answer 1

You do need to duplicate the code but you need to make sure it runs only on the correct system. In iOS 13 you don’t want that application delegate didFinishLaunching body code to run, so use an availability check to prevent it. In the same way, use availability to hide the window scene stuff from iOS 12.

Here's the basic sketch of a solution that runs correctly on both iOS 12 and iOS 13:

AppDelegate.Swift

import UIKit
@UIApplicationMain
class AppDelegate : UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
    var window : UIWindow?
    func application(_ application: UIApplication,
        didFinishLaunchingWithOptions 
        launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey : Any]?)
        -> Bool {
            if #available(iOS 13, *) {
                // do only pure app launch stuff, not interface stuff
            } else {
                self.window = UIWindow()
                let vc = ViewController()
                self.window!.rootViewController = vc
                self.window!.makeKeyAndVisible()
                self.window!.backgroundColor = .red
            }
            return true
    }
}

SceneDelegate.swift

import UIKit
@available(iOS 13.0, *)
class SceneDelegate: UIResponder, UIWindowSceneDelegate {
    var window : UIWindow?
    func scene(_ scene: UIScene,
        willConnectTo session: UISceneSession,
        options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) {
            if let windowScene = scene as? UIWindowScene {
                self.window = UIWindow(windowScene: windowScene) 
                let vc = ViewController()                      
                self.window!.rootViewController = vc             
                self.window!.makeKeyAndVisible()                 
                self.window!.backgroundColor = .red
            }
    }
}

ViewController.swift

import UIKit
class ViewController : UIViewController {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        print("view did load")
        self.view.backgroundColor = .green
    }
}

Note that dealing with other duplicates, such as the application activating, is much simpler because if you support window scenes the application delegate method won't be called on iOS 12. So the problem is confined to this one situation, namely where you have window / root view controller manipulations to perform at launch (e.g. no storyboard).

Irradiation

oh I see, so perhaps something like @available(iOS, obsoleted: 13) on my didFinishLaunchingWithOptions? – Tightfisted

Please see my update, I added a check which works in iOS12 but iOS13 is still calling it twice. Appreciate your help. – Tightfisted

Well saying guard #available(iOS 12, *) else { return true } is silly, as that does the opposite of what you want. Now the code runs in both iOS 12 and iOS 13 and excludes iOS 11, which needs it! What you need to do is the opposite of that: return true immediately in iOS 13 but proceed otherwise. – Irradiation

Downloadable project here github.com/mattneub/Programming-iOS-Book-Examples/tree/master/… – Irradiation

Why not just remove the SceneDelegate altogether? – Uncloak

Answer 2

Xcode 11.* and Swift 5.*

Follow the steps given below after that your code will work fine for both iOS 12 and iOS 13 -

1. Remove the scene manifest from info.plist file
2. Remove scene delegate
3. Add window property inside the AppDelegate
4. Remove all the methods(2 methods mostly) related to the scene from AppDelegate

Hope this will work for someone. Happy Coding 🤓

Goshawk

Answer 3

This is work on me.

@available out the SceneDelegate.swift

As the SceneDelegate class is only available on iOS 13 and above, we have to tell the compiler to only include the class for iOS 13 and above. To do this, we will add this line "@available(iOS 13.0, *)" right above the SceneDelegate class declaration like this :

import UIKit

@available(iOS 13.0, *)
class SceneDelegate: UIResponder, UIWindowSceneDelegate {
//...
}

@available out some methods in AppDelegate.swift

Next, there are two new methods added in AppDelegate.swift, which only supports iOS 13 and above. We will add the same @available(iOS 13.0, *) on top of them as well :

// AppDelegate.swift

@available(iOS 13.0, *)
func application(_ application: UIApplication, configurationForConnecting connectingSceneSession: UISceneSession, options: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) -> UISceneConfiguration {
    // Called when a new scene session is being created.
    // Use this method to select a configuration to create the new scene with.
    return UISceneConfiguration(name: "Default Configuration", sessionRole: connectingSceneSession.role)
}

@available(iOS 13.0, *)
func application(_ application: UIApplication, didDiscardSceneSessions sceneSessions: Set<UISceneSession>) {
    // Called when the user discards a scene session.
    // If any sessions were discarded while the application was not running, this will be called shortly after application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions.
    // Use this method to release any resources that were specific to the discarded scenes, as they will not return.
}

Add back the window to AppDelegate

If you build and run your app now, you will get a dark black screen, because there's no UIWindow initialized.

In iOS 12 and older, there's always a var window: UIWindow? variable located at the top of AppDelegate.swft. iOS 13 has moved this variable to SceneDelegate.swift, and now we are going to add back this variable to AppDelegate.

import UIKit

@UIApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
     
    var window: UIWindow?
  
    // ...
}

Now Build and run your app on an iOS 12 devices, and it works!

I guess Apple really wants iOS developers to adopt and focus on iOS 13, to the extent that they don't mind breaking support for iOS 12 and older with default settings in Xcode.

If you are lazy to do these step manually every time, you can also download Xcode 10.3 in the Apple's developer download portal (require sign in with your Apple ID), create a new Xcode project using it, and then edit it using Xcode 11.

Stringed