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Concern

While it has always been clear that these forums are for the Swift language itself and not for Frameworks that happen to use Swift (with exceptions for the Related Projects Category), and we often have to reply to new Topics (especially in the Using Swift Category) created for off-topic subjects to explain that a given subject is off-topic, there does seem to be an unspoken exception for SwiftUI questions.

There seems to be a belief (perhaps “hope” is a better term) that SwiftUI source will eventually be opened and officially put under the umbrella of the Swift project. Perhaps this is the reason for our unwritten exception.

Proposed Solution

Create a SwiftUI Category under the Using Swift Category. While there is a swiftui tag that is being used to mark these, I think we should acknowledge the unspoken exeption the same way that Swift Composable Architecture et al. appear under Related Projects.

Alternatives

Put It in Related Projects

Rather than place a new SwiftUI Category under Using Swift, it could be placed under the Related Projects Category like the other related projects. I think that is a reasonable thing to do, but I also think that if we do that we will continue to get most of the SwiftUI-related posts under Using Swift, as most of these are from recent members of these forums and the Using Swift Category is an inviting beacon for newbie questions, while Related Projects reads as an advanced Category. One must also acknowledge the all-too-common misconception that SwiftUI already is a part of the Swift language itself.

Stop Allowing It

Instead of giving SwiftUI it's own sanctioned Category, we could start telling folks who create new Topics in this vein the same thing we do for questions related to UIKit, etc. and refer them to StackExchange, Apple's Developer Forums, Reddit, etc. for help. The nature of Apple's choice of names for this Framework certainly means we will continue to receive SwiftUI questions regardless of what we do, so I suspect this alternative has the most work attached as we will be frequently referring questions away.

Leave It Be

Maybe there's no need to change anything and we keep the status quo with the de facto exception for SwiftUI left unwritten.

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This is already the policy. It's just that we get so many, and many often bring up Swift esoterica, that many users just answer or discuss the question instead. Given what has happened to the Apple developer forums (who designs these things?) I'm sympathetic to the desire to create an alternative but official place to discuss the framework but I don't think that's what Apple wants. If we did want to do so we'd need to put in the same sort of expectations that places like StackOverflow has: questions are expected to have been investigated, attempts at solutions should be documented, and should be specific. Without that I think this forum could be somewhat overloaded by low quality questions (which we already see to an extent).

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That ostensibly is the policy but don’t you agree that the de facto policy doesn’t match?

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I was about to post a similar proposal but then found this topic.
How do we add a new category to this forum, is this something only site admins can do?
My +1 for having a dedicated SwiftUI category.

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This post is how we get it approved and then the admins do it. It doesn’t seem likely as the community consensus appears to be apathy.

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I think we’ve implicitly gone with option 3. I still think it should have its own space in Related Projects. The swiftui tag is the third most frequently used tag on the whole site and those of us marking the tag could just relocate the post to the Swift UI section in Related Projects instead of just tagging them if we only had the place for it.

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Come to think of it, I bet since most posts tagged swiftui also get tagged off-topic it might actually be the second most used tag if there were a place to put these.

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For more context on the current policy,

I guess it would be debatable if SwiftUI becomes open-source; if.

Personally, I used to tell people to go to appropriate forums all the time in the past, but the sheer quantity of people coming in (or ignoring the suggestions) is just exhausting.

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Apple has asked us to forward questions about using Apple platform frameworks like SwiftUI to the Apple developer forums. Any community member is welcome to make that suggestion (politely, please), or you can also just ask me to do it (by flagging the post as off-topic), which I try to do on my own as well. There isn't much point in arguing with anyone here that Apple's policy should change, though.

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