How to use core spotlight ?

Question

Created Mar ’25

Replies 3

Boosts 0

Participants 2

Watched videos, blog post and downloaded their projects and there the core spot lights works accordingly. I copied code to an empty project and did the same as what they did but still is not working os: macOS and iOS

on coredataobject I settled up a attribute to index for spotlight and in object it self I putted the attribute name in display name for spotlight.

    static let shared = PersistenceController()
    
    var spotlightDelegate: NSCoreDataCoreSpotlightDelegate?

    @MainActor
    static let preview: PersistenceController = {
        let result = PersistenceController(inMemory: true)
        let viewContext = result.container.viewContext
        for _ in 0..<10 {
            let newItem = Item(context: viewContext)
            newItem.timestamp = Date()
        }
        do {
            try viewContext.save()
        } catch {
            let nsError = error as NSError
            fatalError("Unresolved error \(nsError), \(nsError.userInfo)")
        }
        return result
    }()

    let container: NSPersistentContainer

    init(inMemory: Bool = false) {
        container = NSPersistentContainer(name: "SpotLightSearchTest")
        if inMemory {
            container.persistentStoreDescriptions.first!.url = URL(fileURLWithPath: "/dev/null")
        }
        container.loadPersistentStores(completionHandler: { [weak self] (storeDescription, error) in
            if let error = error as NSError? {
                fatalError("Unresolved error \(error), \(error.userInfo)")
            }
            if let description = self?.container.persistentStoreDescriptions.first {
                description.setOption(true as NSNumber, forKey: NSPersistentHistoryTrackingKey)
                description.type = NSSQLiteStoreType

                if let coordinator = self?.container.persistentStoreCoordinator {
                    self?.spotlightDelegate = NSCoreDataCoreSpotlightDelegate(
                        forStoreWith: description,
                        coordinator: coordinator
                    )

                    self?.spotlightDelegate?.startSpotlightIndexing()
                }
            }
        })
        container.viewContext.automaticallyMergesChangesFromParent = true
    }
}

in my @main view

struct SpotLightSearchTestApp: App {
    let persistenceController = PersistenceController.shared

    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            ContentView()
                .environment(\.managedObjectContext, persistenceController.container.viewContext)
                .onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType) {_ in 
                    print("")
                }
        }
    }
}

onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType) {_ in print("") } never gets triggered. Sow What am I missing that they dont explain in the blog post or videos ?

Boost

Answer 1

darkpaw OP

Mar ’25

How would you know it never gets triggered? You aren't printing anything to the console.

Anyway, in my apps I have the WindowGroup set up like this:

var body: some Scene {
  WindowGroup {
    PhoneView()
      .environment(modelData)
  }
}

And then, in the PhoneView() I have this:

var body: some View {
  ZStack {
   // Whatever...
  }
  .onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType, perform: handleSpotlight)

  // blah blah blah...
}

private func handleSpotlight(userActivity: NSUserActivity) {
  guard let uniqueIdentifier = userActivity.userInfo?[CSSearchableItemActivityIdentifier] as? String else { return }

  // Handle the activity...
}

0

Answer 2

darkpaw OP

Mar ’25

I replied to this, but my reply seems to have disappeared... Here we go (again): (And now it's appeared. Apple, issues with the forums after your changes overnight?)

Aside from printing nothing (""), I think you're doing this in the wrong place.

I have this in my main app's WindowGroup. It just loads the PhoneView:

var body: some Scene {
  WindowGroup {
    PhoneView()
      .environment(modelData)
      // The difference is that I'm not continuing the Spotlight activity here, unlike you.
  }
}

struct PhoneView: View {
  var body: some View {
    VStack {
      // Blah blah blah
    }
    .onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType, perform: handleSpotlight)
  }

  private func handleSpotlight(userActivity: NSUserActivity) {
    guard let uniqueIdentifier = userActivity.userInfo?[CSSearchableItemActivityIdentifier] as? String else { return }

    if(!uniqueIdentifier.isEmpty) {
      // Handle the Spotlight activity
    }
  }
}

0

Answer 3

Matthew_hermans OP

Mar ’25

I tried it but still never gets triggered. I put a breakpoint on print statement to know if gets triggered. this how my code looks now in content view

        NavigationView {
            List {
                ForEach(items) { item in
                    NavigationLink {
                        Text("Item at \(item.text ?? "")")
                    } label: {
                        Text(item.timestamp!, formatter: itemFormatter)
                    }
                }
                .onDelete(perform: deleteItems)
            }
            .toolbar {
#if os(iOS)
                ToolbarItem(placement: .navigationBarTrailing) {
                    EditButton()
                }
#endif
                ToolbarItem {
                    Button(action: addItem) {
                        Label("Add Item", systemImage: "plus")
                    }
                }
            }
            Text("Select an item")
        }
        .onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType) {_ in
            print("IT WORKS")
        }

0