SwiftUI .rotationEffect() framing and offsetting

Question

When applying .rotationEffect() to a Text, it rotates the text as expected, but its frame remains unchanged. This becomes an issue when stacking rotated views with non-rotated v

Answer 1

RotationEffect takes a second argument which is the anchor point, if you omit it - the default is .center.

Try this instead:

.rotationEffect(.degrees(-90), anchor: .bottomTrailing)

Answer 2

You need to adjust the frame yourself in this case. That requires capturing what the frame is, and then applying the adjustment.

First, to capture the existing frame, create a preference, which is a system for passing data from child views to their parents:

private struct SizeKey: PreferenceKey {
    static let defaultValue: CGSize = .zero
    static func reduce(value: inout CGSize, nextValue: () -> CGSize) {
        value = nextValue()
    }
}

extension View {
    func captureSize(in binding: Binding<CGSize>) -> some View {
        overlay(GeometryReader { proxy in
            Color.clear.preference(key: SizeKey.self, value: proxy.size)
        })
            .onPreferenceChange(SizeKey.self) { size in binding.wrappedValue = size }
    }
}

This creates a new .captureSize(in: $binding) method on Views.

Using that, we can create a new kind of View that rotates its frame:

struct Rotated<Rotated: View>: View {
    var view: Rotated
    var angle: Angle

    init(_ view: Rotated, angle: Angle = .degrees(-90)) {
        self.view = view
        self.angle = angle
    }

    @State private var size: CGSize = .zero

    var body: some View {
        // Rotate the frame, and compute the smallest integral frame that contains it
        let newFrame = CGRect(origin: .zero, size: size)
            .offsetBy(dx: -size.width/2, dy: -size.height/2)
            .applying(.init(rotationAngle: CGFloat(angle.radians)))
            .integral

        return view
            .fixedSize()                    // Don't change the view's ideal frame
            .captureSize(in: $size)         // Capture the size of the view's ideal frame
            .rotationEffect(angle)          // Rotate the view
            .frame(width: newFrame.width,   // And apply the new frame
                   height: newFrame.height)
    }
}

And for convenience, an extension to apply it:

extension View {
    func rotated(_ angle: Angle = .degrees(-90)) -> some View {
        Rotated(self, angle: angle)
    }
}

And now your code should work as you expect:

struct TextAloneView: View {

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("Horizontal text")
            Text("Vertical text").rotated()
        }
    }
}