Aviary

An interactive documentation browser for SwiftUI.

The catalog spans 907 topics and 1,455 sub-entries (2,362 pages) covering SwiftUI views, modifiers, shapes, protocols, scenes, styles, property wrappers, environment values, and supporting types, from the 2019 debut through WWDC 2025, across iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS.

Independent project. This is an original, from-scratch build. It reproduces the general idea of an interactive SwiftUI reference, but shares no code, content, or assets with any App Store product, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. "SwiftUI" and "Swift" are trademarks of Apple Inc.

Features

• Every entry has a visualization. 49 interactive demos plus 858 compiled usage examples — nothing is a bare code listing. Where an API can't run in a window (App Store paywalls, live map tiles), the page shows a faithful, clearly-labeled illustration beside the real code.
• Every variant has its own live example. Each of the 1,455 sub-entries — a specific initializer, overload, nested type, or static member — has a compiled rendering that exercises exactly that form, with the code the view was built from. Selecting a variant swaps its example into the page in place, so the topic's header, discussion, and scroll position stay put.
• Interactive, drag-first demos. The flagships let you feel the API: drag the control points of a quadratic or cubic Bézier curve, the anchors of a gradient, the light source behind a shadow, or the sweep of an angular gradient — and watch the generated code update to match.
• Copy-ready code. Every example's code panel copies to the clipboard, syntax-highlighted, ready to paste into Xcode.
• Workspace tabs with independent filters. Each tab has its own filter over API area, platform, framework, and WWDC-year range, plus its own search and selection — so you can keep "everything new since WWDC '24" open next to "just the shapes."
• Menu bar quick search. A menu bar icon opens a type-ahead search that jumps the main window straight to any entry or sub-entry.
• Back / forward history. Per-tab navigation history with ⌘[ and ⌘], restoring both the entry and the context you viewed it in.
• Light / dark / system appearance toggle, persisted across launches.

Requirements

• macOS 26 or later
• Xcode 26 or later

Build & run

git clone https://github.com/TheBCann/Aviary.git
cd Aviary
open Aviary.xcodeproj

Select the Aviary scheme and run (⌘R). To run the test suite:

xcodebuild test -scheme Aviary -destination 'platform=macOS'

How it's built

The app is a layered, dependency-free SwiftUI project with one deliberate design choice at its center: the catalog is data, not code.

• Catalog — every documented API lives as JSON in CatalogData/, decoded into a Codable Topic at launch. Adding or editing an entry is a JSON edit; the app never recompiles for content. A Topic carries its kind, summary, discussion, example code, per-platform availability (derived from its WWDC year), framework, and sub-entries.
• Rendered examples — each domain contributes a file of compiled example views in Examples/. ExampleRegistry aggregates them, and a topic's page shows, in order of preference: its interactive demo, its rendered example, then static code.
• Variant renderings — the ChildExamples+PartNN.swift files hold one compiled view per sub-entry, keyed by "<topic> › <variant>" and aggregated by ChildExampleRegistry. When a variant is selected, its rendering and code replace the topic's example region; everything else on the page is unchanged.
• Interactive demos — DemoRegistry maps a topic's demoID to a live, parameterized demo whose controls drive a real view and regenerate the displayed code, so the two never disagree.
• Tests — 32 tests guard the data layer: catalog integrity (every entry decodes, ids are unique, every demoID resolves, availability is derivable), filter logic, navigation history, the Codable round trip, and full visualization coverage — the build fails if any topic lacks a demo or example, or if any variant lacks a rendering or names a variant that doesn't exist.

Frameworks referenced

Beyond SwiftUI itself, the catalog documents the SwiftUI-facing surface of Swift Charts, MapKit, SwiftData, StoreKit, TipKit, PhotosUI, WidgetKit, WebKit, AVKit, SpriteKit, SceneKit, QuickLook, and more — each entry noting the module it requires.

Adding to the catalog

Because the catalog is JSON, contributions are mostly data:

1. Add or edit an entry in the appropriate CatalogData/*.json file.
2. If it warrants a rendered example, add one to the matching Examples/Examples+*.swift file (a compiled SwiftUI view plus the code it corresponds to). A new sub-entry needs a ChildExampleEntry in one of the Examples/ChildExamples+Part*.swift files — the coverage test will name any variant that lacks one.
3. Run the tests — the integrity and coverage checks will tell you if anything is missing or inconsistent.

License

Released under the MIT License.