How to customize panel animations in Panels?

Animation customization is limited; PanelConfiguration offers animateEntry for basic effects, but for advanced animations like spring or duration changes, you may need to extend the framework or implement custom transitions manually.

Panels vs. FloatingPanel: which is better for iOS?

Panels is lighter and simpler with built-in safe area and keyboard handling, ideal for straightforward sliding panels. FloatingPanel offers more features like multiple panel types and richer customization, so choose based on complexity needs.

Can I use Panels with SwiftUI?

Panels is built for UIKit and requires UIViewControllers. To integrate with SwiftUI, you must wrap it in a UIViewControllerRepresentable, which adds complexity and may not align seamlessly with SwiftUI's declarative style.

How to handle multiple panels in one view controller?

The framework doesn't natively support multiple panels; you'd need to manage separate PanelManager instances or implement custom logic, which can become error-prone for complex interfaces.

Is Panels compatible with iOS 12 or older?

The README doesn't specify a minimum iOS version, but it's updated to Swift 5.1 and likely targets recent iOS releases. Check the source or documentation for backward compatibility if supporting older versions.

How to add background blur or other visual effects to a panel?

Visual effects like blur aren't part of the core framework; you must implement them manually in your panel view controller, such as by adding a UIVisualEffectView, which requires extra UI work.

Open-Awesome

Panels

MITSwift2.2.3

A Swift framework for adding sliding panels to iOS apps with safe area and keyboard handling.

GitHub

1.5k stars89 forks0 contributors

What is Panels?

Panels is a Swift framework for iOS that enables developers to easily add sliding panels to their applications. It handles complex UI challenges like safe area adaptation and keyboard visibility automatically, allowing developers to focus on building features rather than managing panel behavior.

Target Audience

iOS developers building apps that require sliding overlays, modals, or contextual panels, such as settings drawers, detail views, or interactive menus.

Value Proposition

Developers choose Panels for its simplicity, robust handling of iOS-specific UI concerns, and flexible configuration options that reduce boilerplate code compared to manual implementations or heavier UI libraries.

Overview

Panels is a framework to easily add sliding panels to your application

Use Cases

Best For

Adding bottom sheets or sliding drawers in iOS apps
Creating interactive panels that respond to keyboard visibility
Implementing modals that adapt to safe areas on modern iPhones
Building contextual menus or settings panels with smooth animations
Developing apps that require draggable or tappable overlay components
Integrating lightweight, customizable sliding UI without external dependencies

Not Ideal For

Apps requiring cross-platform support beyond iOS (e.g., React Native or Flutter projects)
Complex UIs with multiple simultaneous or nested sliding panels
Projects needing pre-styled, out-of-the-box components without custom UI work
Developers who prefer SwiftUI-native solutions over UIKit-based frameworks

Pros & Cons

Pros

Safe Area Integration

Automatically adjusts panel positioning for device notches and rounded corners via the useSafeArea flag in PanelConfiguration, eliminating manual safe area handling.

Keyboard Awareness

Dynamically moves panels when the keyboard appears or disappears, preventing content occlusion without extra code, as highlighted in the README's key features.

Flexible Configuration

Offers extensive customization through PanelConfiguration, allowing control over size, margins, gestures, and animation behaviors with declarative settings.

Interactive Gestures

Supports tap and drag gestures on panel headers for collapsing and expanding, with options like closeOutsideTap for intuitive user interactions.

Cons

iOS-Only Limitation

Built exclusively for iOS with Swift, making it unsuitable for cross-platform projects or other Apple platforms like macOS without significant adaptation.

Single-Panel Focus

Designed around managing individual panels; lacks built-in support for multiple coordinated panels or complex panel hierarchies, which can limit more advanced UIs.

Protocol Overhead

Requires view controllers to conform to protocols like Panelable, adding boilerplate code that might be cumbersome for very simple or rapid prototyping needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Projects

RESideMenu

iOS 7/8 style side menu with parallax effect.

Stars7,048

Forks1,323

Last commit8 years ago

XLPagerTabStrip

Android PagerTabStrip for iOS.

Stars7,006

Forks1,314

Last commit2 years ago

SideMenu

Simple side/slide menu control for iOS, no code necessary! Lots of customization. Add it to your project in 5 minutes or less.

Stars5,820

Forks694

Last commit3 years ago

ViewDeck

An implementation of the sliding menu found in various iOS apps.

Stars5,268

Forks956