How to have detail view selected by default for NavigationStack in IOS16 - ios16

Question

Using the new NavigationStack in iOS16 what is the best way to have a detail view displayed by default instead of the stack?
This is what I have so far:
struct SomeView: View {
var animals = [Animal](repeating: Animal(), count: 1)
var body: some View {
NavigationStack() {
List(animals) { animal in
NavigationLink(animal.name, value: animal)
}.navigationDestination(for: Animal.self) { animal in
AnimalDetailView(animal: animal)
}
}.onAppear{
}
}
}
It seems like there should be something simple I could add in the onAppear modifier (or somewhere else) that allows me to have something pre-selected, but I can't find anything that doesn't use the deprecated tag or selection method

Answer 1

Welp here is the only approach I could find....had to skip the NavigationStack and go to a NavigationSplitView with two columns. Here is the code:
#State private var selectedAnimal: Animal? = Animal()
#State private var columnVisibility = NavigationSplitViewVisibility.detailOnly
var animals = [Animal](repeating: Animal(), count: 1)
var body: some View {
NavigationSplitView(columnVisibility: $columnVisibility) {
//menu
List(animals, selection: $selectedAnimal) { animal in
NavigationLink(value: animal) {
Text(animal.name)
}
}
} detail: {
//detail view for each of the menu items
if let selectedAnimal {
AnimalDetailView(animal: selectedAnimal)
}
}
}
...obviously you need to pass in an Animal object for it to really work, but you get the idea. If anyone else has a better approach with the NavigationStack I'd love to see it. This feels a bit hacky.

Answer 2

This is covered in the Apple docs actually! Here's the main part:
#State private var path: [Color] = [] // Nothing on the stack by default. BUT if you add one, then it will be the default selected item. For example, make it .purple in this example so it shows as selected by default.
var body: some View {
NavigationStack(path: $path) {
List {
NavigationLink("Purple", value: .purple)
NavigationLink("Pink", value: .pink)
NavigationLink("Orange", value: .orange)
}
.navigationDestination(for: Color.self) { color in
ColorDetail(color: color)
}
}
}
Check out the "Update programmatic navigation section" in the docs here:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/migrating-to-new-navigation-types