NetNewsWire/Technotes/Widget.md

Widget

Supported Widget Styles

The NetNewsWire iOS widget supports the systemSmall and systemMedium styles.

The systemSmall style displays the current Today and Unread counts; systemMedium displays the latest two articles along with current Today and Unread count.

Passing Data from the App to the Widget

Data is made available to the widget by encoding JSON data and saving it to a file in a directory available to app extensions.

struct WidgetData: Codable {

    let currentUnreadCount: Int 
    let currentTodayCount: Int
    let latestArticles: [LatestArticle]
    let lastUpdateTime: Date

}

struct LatestArticle: Codable {

    let feedTitle: String
    let articleTitle: String?
    let articleSummary: String?
    let feedIcon: Data? // Base64 encoded image data
    let pubDate: String

}

When is JSON Data Saved?

1. On unreadCountDidChange
2. After a background refresh
3. When the app enters the background

After JSON data is saved, Widget timelines are reloaded.