FileBrowser

Plain Text Editor With Document Browser.

This is a sample project I decided to publish together with the blog post with everything I learned so far about working with the file system on macOS. There are not many modern working AppKit code examples out there. It's fun to develop for the Mac, and I hope this helps someone, it always great to see more native applications out there.

Requirements

• Mac running macOS 13.1 or newer
• Xcode installed

Features

• SwiftUI
• Monitors file changes with DispatchSource
• Basic text editing
• Working example of how to use NSDocument
• Pick a root folder and get permanent read/write access to all non-nested files inside without violating the Sandobx
• No need for full disk access or permission dialogues
• Conflicts resolution
• Potentially compatible with UIKit

Contributions and Disclosure

This project is learning process for me, feel free to suggest changes and raise issues. I am not looking to add any new UI features, but instead interested in improving app, document, and editor models.

I can't guarantee that the code is written in the best way and bug-free.

Wants

• Any improvements which utilise more of the NSDocument features, and using more higher level APIs, like NSDocumentController
• iOS and iPadOS compatibility
• Customisation for conflict resolution, allowing a user to update documents from disk from changes made externally. The app will possibly need a setting to change behaviour
• Possibly this can be turned into a Swift Package for easier integration into larger projects
• Handling a scenario when root folder is moved or renamed

Visit my website, subscribe to my micro blog.