Not the Answer I Was Looking For
Sometimes when you post a question on social media, your intent gets misunderstood. Responses veer off track, and your original point gets lost. That happened to me last week.
I was experimenting with the symbolEffect function on SF Symbols and discovered that it accepts an isActive parameter. This parameter defaults to true, so you can omit it if needed. For example, you can create a pulsing image using an SF Symbol like this:
Image(systemName: "plus.circle.fill)
.symbolEffect(.breathe)
.breathe is just one of many available symbol effects, and it creates a nice pulsing animation like the one shown here.
What caught my attention was the ability to control whether the effect is active. That inspired me to create a quick demo where the effect is only active when needed. I shared a simple ToDo list example: when the list is empty, a toolbar button pulses to draw the user’s attention. Once a ToDo is added, the pulsing stops:
.symbolEffect(.breathe, isActive: todos.isEmpty)
The intent was to highlight a subtle way to direct a user’s attention—without relying on the Tips framework.
Unfortunately, my example backfired. I asked:
I’m looking for subtle ways to draw attention to a button only if necessary, without using the Tips framework.
Comments?
It was a poorly worded post with a questionable example, and the majority of responses focused on how I should have used ContentUnavailableView instead. And they’re right—that would have been the better approach for this particular case. I’d normally use ContentUnavailableView too.
But that wasn’t really the point.
What I hoped to spotlight was the flexibility of symbolEffect, particularly with the isActive parameter, and how it could be used in other scenarios where ContentUnavailableView isn’t appropriate.
I still believe this technique has potential, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you used symbolEffect in a clever way? Reach out and share—I’d love to learn from your ideas!
