hstack

An HStack, or horizontal stack, is a layout container in SwiftUI that arranges its child views in a single horizontal row. It is commonly used to create compact, row-style interfaces such as toolbars, controls, or inline content. The stack places views in sequence from leading to trailing, and it respects the surrounding environment’s layout direction for left-to-right or right-to-left locales.

An HStack is initialized with optional parameters for alignment and spacing. The alignment parameter determines how the child views are positioned vertically within the row (for example, .center, .top, .bottom, or baseline alignments). The spacing parameter controls the distance between adjacent child views; if spacing is omitted, a default value is applied by the system.

Inside an HStack, you compose views just as you would in a vertical stack. A common pattern is to insert a Spacer() to create flexible space that expands to fill the available width, allowing other views to cling to the sides or center. The HStack expands to fill the available width according to its parent’s constraints, and you can influence this with frame modifiers that set maxWidth, minWidth, or alignment.

HStack integrates with SwiftUI’s responsive layout system and respects dynamic type and accessibility settings. It also responds to the environment’s locale and layout direction, ensuring content aligns with user preferences. HStack is often used in conjunction with VStack and ZStack to build complex, adaptive interfaces.

See also: SwiftUI, VStack, ZStack, Spacer.