SwiftUI essentials

Creating and combining views

This tutorial guides you through building Landmarks — an app for discovering and sharing the places you love. You’ll start by building the view that shows a landmark’s details.

To lay out the views, Landmarks uses stacks to combine and layer the image and text view components. To add a map to the view, you’ll include a standard MapKit component. As you refine the view’s design, Xcode provides real-time feedback so you can see how those changes translate into code.

Download the project files to begin building this project, and follow the steps below.

40mins
Estimated Time
Project files
Xcode 15 or later

Section 1

Create a new project and explore the canvas

Create a new Xcode project that uses SwiftUI. Explore the canvas, previews, and the SwiftUI template code.

To preview and interact with views from the canvas in Xcode, and to use all the latest features described throughout the tutorials, ensure your Mac is running macOS Sonoma or later.

A screenshot of the editor and canvas, with the iPhone preview showing to the right.

Step 1

Open Xcode and either click “Create New Project” in Xcode’s startup window, or choose File > New > Project.

A screenshot of the Xcode welcome screen. There are three options to choose from when you open Xcode: Create New Project, Clone Git Repository, and Open Existing Project. The first option is highlighted.

Step 2

In the template selector, select iOS as the platform, select the App template, and then click Next.

A screenshot of the template selector sheet in Xcode. In the top row, iOS is selected as the platform. In the Application section, App is selected as the template. The Next button in the lower-right corner is highlighted.

Step 3

Enter “Landmarks” as the product name, select “SwiftUI” for the interface and “Swift” for the language, and click Next. Choose a location to save the Landmarks project on your Mac.

A screenshot of the project sheet which shows the name Landmarks filled in for the Product Name. The interface is set to SwiftUI, and the language is set to Swift.

Step 4

In the Project navigator, select LandmarksApp.

An app that uses the SwiftUI app life cycle has a structure that conforms to the App protocol. The structure’s body property returns one or more scenes, which in turn provide content for display. The @main attribute identifies the app’s entry point.

LandmarksApp.swift
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import SwiftUI

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@main

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struct LandmarksApp: App {

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    var body: some Scene {

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        WindowGroup {

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            ContentView()

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        }

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    }

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}

Step 5

In the Project navigator, select ContentView.

By default, SwiftUI view files declare a structure and a preview. The structure conforms to the View protocol and describes the view’s content and layout. The preview declaration creates a preview for that view.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack {

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            Image(systemName: "globe")

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                .imageScale(.large)

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                .foregroundStyle(.tint)

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            Text("Hello, world!")

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        }

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        .padding()

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Step 6

The canvas displays a preview automatically.

If the canvas isn’t visible, select Editor > Canvas to show it.

A screenshot of the Xcode canvas showing an iPhone preview screen that has the text Hello world below a globe icon.

Step 7

Inside the body property, remove everything but the Text declaration and change “Hello, world!” to a greeting for yourself.

As you change the code in a view’s body property, the preview updates to reflect your changes.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        Text("Hello SwiftUI!")

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Section 2

Customize the text view

You can customize a view’s display by changing your code, or by using the inspector to discover what’s available and to help you write code.

As you build the Landmarks app, you can use any combination of editors: the source editor, the canvas, or the inspectors. Your code stays updated, regardless of which tool you use.

A screenshot of the editor and canvas, with the iPhone preview showing to the right.

Next, you’ll customize the text view using the inspector.

Step 1

Change the canvas mode to Selectable.

The canvas displays previews in Live mode by default so that you can interact with them, but you can use the Selectable mode to enable editing instead.

A screenshot of the editor and canvas, with the iPhone preview showing to the right.

Step 2

In the preview, Command-Control-click the greeting to bring up the structured editing popover, and choose “Show SwiftUI Inspector”.

The popover shows different attributes that you can customize, depending on the type of view you inspect.

A screenshot of the editor and canvas, with the iPhone preview showing to the right.

Step 3

Use the inspector to change the text to “Turtle Rock”, the name of the first landmark you’ll show in your app.

A screenshot.

Step 4

Change the Font modifier to “Title”.

This applies the system font to the text so that it responds correctly to the user’s preferred font sizes and settings.

A screenshot.

To customize a SwiftUI view, you call methods called modifiers. Modifiers wrap a view to change its display or other properties. Each modifier returns a new view, so it’s common to chain multiple modifiers, stacked vertically.

Step 5

Edit the code by hand to add the foregroundColor(.green) modifier; this changes the text’s color to green.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        Text("Turtle Rock")

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            .font(.title)

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            .foregroundColor(.green)

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Your code is always the source of truth for the view. When you use the inspector to change or remove a modifier, Xcode updates your code immediately to match.

Step 6

This time, open the inspector by Control-clicking on the Text declaration in the code editor, and then choose “Show SwiftUI Inspector” from the popover. Click the Color pop-up menu and choose Inherited to change the text color to black again.

A screenshot.

Step 7

Notice that Xcode updates your code automatically to reflect the change, removing the foregroundColor(.green) modifier.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        Text("Turtle Rock")

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            .font(.title)

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Step 8

Set the preview back to Live mode.

Working in Live mode makes it easy to keep track of view behavior as you make edits in source.

A screenshot.

Section 3

Combine views using stacks

Beyond the title view you created in the previous section, you’ll add text views to contain details about the landmark, such as the name of the park and state it’s in.

When creating a SwiftUI view, you describe its content, layout, and behavior in the view’s body property; however, the body property only returns a single view. You can combine and embed multiple views in stacks, which group views together horizontally, vertically, or back-to-front.

In this section, you’ll use a vertical stack to place the title above a horizontal stack that contains details about the park.

A screenshot of the editor and canvas, with the iPhone preview showing to the right.

You can use Xcode to embed a view in a container view, open an inspector, or help with other useful changes.

Step 1

Control-click the text view’s initializer to show a context menu, and then choose “Embed in VStack”.

A screenshot.

Next, you’ll add a text view to the stack by dragging a Text view from the library.

Step 2

Open the library by clicking the plus button (+) at the top-right of the Xcode window, and then drag a Text view to the place in your code immediately below the “Turtle Rock” text view.

A screenshot.

Step 3

Replace the Text view’s placeholder text with “Joshua Tree National Park”.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack {

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            Text("Turtle Rock")

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                .font(.title)

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            Text("Joshua Tree National Park")

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        }

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Customize the location to match the desired layout.

Step 4

Set the location’s font to subheadline.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack {

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            Text("Turtle Rock")

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                .font(.title)

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            Text("Joshua Tree National Park")

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                .font(.subheadline)

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        }

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Step 5

Edit the VStack initializer to align the views by their leading edges.

By default, stacks center their contents along their axis and provide context-appropriate spacing.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack(alignment: .leading) {

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            Text("Turtle Rock")

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                .font(.title)

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            Text("Joshua Tree National Park")

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                .font(.subheadline)

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        }

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Next, you’ll add another text view to the right of the location, this for the park’s state.

Step 6

Embed the “Joshua Tree National Park” text view in an HStack.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack(alignment: .leading) {

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            Text("Turtle Rock")

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                .font(.title)

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            HStack {

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                Text("Joshua Tree National Park")

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                    .font(.subheadline)

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            }

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        }

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Step 7

Add a new text view after the location, change the placeholder text to the park’s state, and then set its font to subheadline.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack(alignment: .leading) {

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            Text("Turtle Rock")

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                .font(.title)

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            HStack {

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                Text("Joshua Tree National Park")

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                    .font(.subheadline)

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                Text("California")

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                    .font(.subheadline)

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            }

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        }

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Step 8

To direct the layout to use the full width of the device, separate the park and the state by adding a Spacer to the horizontal stack holding the two text views.

A spacer expands to make its containing view use all of the space of its parent view, instead of having its size defined only by its contents.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack(alignment: .leading) {

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            Text("Turtle Rock")

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                .font(.title)

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            HStack {

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                Text("Joshua Tree National Park")

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                    .font(.subheadline)

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                Spacer()

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                Text("California")

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                    .font(.subheadline)

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            }

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        }

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Step 9

Finally, use the padding() modifier to give the landmark’s name and details a little more space around their outer edges.

ContentView.swift
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import SwiftUI

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struct ContentView: View {

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    var body: some View {

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        VStack(alignment: .leading) {

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            Text("Turtle Rock")

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                .font(.title)

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            HStack {

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                Text("Joshua Tree National Park")

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                    .font(.subheadline)

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                Spacer()

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                Text("California")

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                    .font(.subheadline)

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            }

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        }

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        .padding()

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    }

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}

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#Preview {

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    ContentView()

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}

Check Your Understanding

Question 1 of 2
Which of these is a correct way to return three views from a custom view’s body property?