Building a Smooth Sliding Sidebar Menu in SwiftUI (No Third-Party Libraries)

Building a custom sidebar menu from scratch in SwiftUI can be a more elegant and efficient solution than using external libraries. Most developers struggle with customizing navigation drawer libraries, which often do 80% of what's needed but require wrestling with code for the remaining 20%. SwiftUI makes building custom navigation easy with state variables, smooth animations, and gesture handling. This tutorial will guide you in building a professional sidebar menu with silky-smooth sliding animations, smart pan gesture interactions, and tap-to-close functionality. The menu will have a reusable component architecture with configurable options and a professional visual design. SwiftUI's declarative nature makes building sidebar menus surprisingly elegant, eliminating the need for manual animations and view controllers. The tutorial will cover key features such as smart gesture recognition, professional visual design, smooth animation systems, and reusable component architecture. By building from scratch, you'll gain insights into SwiftUI's gesture and animation coordination, state management patterns, performance optimization techniques, and component design best practices. The complete tutorial is available on Medium, covering everything from basic setup to production-ready code. Building custom components like this is the best way to level up your SwiftUI skills and avoid dependencies.