Xcode Workspace Guide

Tools & Languages: IDEs

2010-05-27
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 Contents

Introduction Introduction 9

Organization of This Document 9

See Also 10

Chapter 1 The Project Window 11

Project Window Components 11

The Groups & Files List 12
The Detail View 16
The Project Window Toolbar 18
The Project Window Status Bar 19
Project Window Layouts 20
The Default Layout 20
The Condensed Layout 21
The All-in-One Layout 22
Saving Changes to the Current Layout 24
The Inspector and Info Windows 25
Viewing the Progress of Tasks in Xcode 26

Chapter 2 Project Organization 27

Software Development Tips 27

Dividing Your Work into Projects and Targets 27
Identifying the Scope 28
Trade-Offs of Putting Many Targets in One Project 28
Trade-Offs of Using Multiple Projects 29
Grouping Files 30
Grouping Files into Static Groups 30
Using Smart Groups 31
Viewing Groups and Files 33
Saving Frequently Accessed Locations 33
Adding Items to the Favorites Bar 33
Defining Bookmarks 34
Adding Comments to Project Items 34
General Preferences 35

Chapter 3 File Management 37

Creating Files 37
Opening Files 37
Opening Project Files 38

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 CONTENTS

Opening Header Files and Other Related Files 38

Opening Superclasses and Subclasses 38
Opening Files by Filename or Symbol Name 38
Specifying How Files Are Opened 39
Saving Files 43
Closing Files 43
Deleting Files 43
Viewing File Information 44
Choosing File Encodings 46
Changing Line Endings 47
Overriding a File’s Type 47

Chapter 4 The Text Editor 49

A Tour of the Text Editor 49

Navigation Bar 50
Using Text Editor Windows 53
Using Text Editor Panes 54
Splitting Text Editors 55
Navigating Code 55
Laying Out Code 56
Indenting Code 56
Matching Parentheses, Braces, and Brackets 58
Wrapping Lines 59
Formatting Code 59
Completing Code 60
Completing Code Inline 60
Completing Code Using the Completion List 63
Scoping Code 63
Code Focus 64
Code Folding 65
Editing Symbol Names 65
Repeating Code 66
Text Macros with Completion Prefixes 68
Viewing Project Messages in the Text Editor 70
Executing Shell Commands in Selection 71
Customizing the Editor 72
Displaying a Page Guide 72
Displaying the Gutter 72
Viewing Column and Line Positions 72
Text Editing Preferences 73
Indentation Preferences 75
Code Sense Preferences 77
Fonts & Colors Preferences 78

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 CONTENTS

Chapter 5 Refactoring Code 81

Refactoring Overview 81
Refactoring Workflow 82
Refactoring Transformations 84
Rename 85
Extract 86
Encapsulate 86
Create Superclass 86
Move Up 87
Move Down 87
Modernize Loop 87
Convert to Objective-C 2.0 89

Chapter 6 Documentation Access 91

Documentation Access Overview 91

Using Quick Help 92
Quick Help Content 93
Quick Help Behavior 94
Using the Documentation Window 94
Using Bookmarks 95
Searching Documentation 96
Opening Sample Projects 98
Setting Documentation Preferences 99
Managing Subscriptions and Updating Documentation 100
Subscribing to Documentation Feeds 101
Customizing Quick Help 101
Setting the Minimum Font Size 102
Viewing Man Pages 102

Chapter 7 Keyboard Shortcuts 103

Key Bindings Preferences 103

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts for Menu Items 104
Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts for Other Tasks 105

Chapter 8 User Scripts 107

Managing User Scripts 107

Duplicating User Scripts 110
Advanced User Scripts 110
Script Input Variables 110
Script Output Markers 111
Using Utility Scripts 112
Built-in Utility Scripts 112

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 CONTENTS

Chapter 9 Resetting Xcode 117

Document Revision History 119

Index 121

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 Figures, Tables, and Listings

Chapter 1 The Project Window 11

Figure 1-1 The default project window layout 11

Figure 1-2 Groups & Files list 13
Figure 1-3 Split Groups & Files view 15
Figure 1-4 Detail view columns 16
Figure 1-5 Searching for files with “delegate” in their name 18
Figure 1-6 Project window toolbar 18
Figure 1-7 The condensed project window 21
Figure 1-8 The all-in-one project window 23
Figure 1-9 Activity Viewer window 26
Table 1-1 Additional windows available with the default project window layout 21
Table 1-2 Additional windows available with the condensed project window layout 22
Table 1-3 Additional windows available with the all-in-one layout 24

Chapter 2 Project Organization 27

Figure 2-1 Smart Group Info window 32

Figure 2-2 General preferences pane 35

Chapter 3 File Management 37

Figure 3-1 The Open Quickly dialog 39

Figure 3-2 File Types preferences pane 41
Figure 3-3 The File Info window 45

Chapter 4 The Text Editor 49

Figure 4-1 The text editor 49

Figure 4-2 Text editor navigation bar 50
Figure 4-3 The Function menu 52
Figure 4-4 The text editor in a standalone window 53
Figure 4-5 The text editor pane in a project window 54
Figure 4-6 Splitting a text editor 55
Figure 4-7 Inline code completion 61
Figure 4-8 Code completion list 63
Figure 4-9 Code-focus controls 64
Figure 4-10 Editing the name of a symbol 66
Figure 4-11 Build message bubbles 71
Figure 4-12 Line numbers and column positions in the File History menu 73
Figure 4-13 Text Editing preferences pane 73

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 FIGURES, TABLES, AND LISTINGS

Figure 4-14 Indentation preferences pane 75

Figure 4-15 Code Sense preferences pane 77
Figure 4-16 Fonts & Colors preferences pane 79
Table 4-1 C text macros with completion prefixes 68
Table 4-2 Objective-C text macros with completion prefixes 69
Table 4-3 C++ text macros with completion prefixes 70

Chapter 5 Refactoring Code 81

Figure 5-1 Xcode refactoring workflow 83

Listing 5-1 Renaming an index variable in a for loop (before) 85
Listing 5-2 Renaming an index variable in a for loop (after) 85
Listing 5-3 Modernizing a for loop (before) 88
Listing 5-4 Modernizing a for loop (after) 88
Listing 5-5 Modernizing a while loop (before) 88
Listing 5-6 Modernizing a while loop (after) 88

Chapter 6 Documentation Access 91

Figure 6-1 Quick Help 93

Figure 6-2 The Xcode Quick Start page 95
Figure 6-3 Documentation-search results 96
Figure 6-4 Documentation preferences 100
Table 6-1 Search origins, information type, and instructions 92
Table 6-2 Boolean operators listed in order of precedence from highest to lowest 97
Table 6-3 Operators that specify whether or not terms should appear in the results 97
Table 6-4 Options that affect documentation subscriptions and updates 101

Chapter 7 Keyboard Shortcuts 103

Figure 7-1 Key Bindings preferences 103

Figure 7-2 Some of the glyphs that represent keys 104
Figure 7-3 Editing a keyboard shortcut for a menu item 105
Figure 7-4 Editing a keyboard shortcut for an editing action 106

Chapter 8 User Scripts 107

Figure 8-1 User Scripts menu 108

Figure 8-2 The Edit User Scripts window 108
Figure 8-3 Adding a shell script 109

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 INTRODUCTION

Introduction

The Xcode workspace is made up of the windows you use regularly to develop products using the Xcode
application. Such windows include the project window, text editor windows, the Documentation window,
and others. Xcode lets you arrange the components of the project window and specify what documentation
the Documentation window shows. When it comes to editing text files, especially source-code files, the Xcode
text editor provides many features that facilitate editing code and accessing API reference directly from the
editor quickly.

This document presents all the components that make up the Xcode workspace. If you’re new to Xcode, you
should read this document to familiarize yourself with these components and to learn how to arrange them
to your liking. What's New in Xcode describes features introduced in the latest release of Xcode.

Software requirements: This document is written for Xcode 3.2 and later.

Organization of This Document

This document contains the following chapters:

■ "The Project Window" (page 11) introduces project window components and describes the available
project window layouts.
■ "Project Organization" (page 27) provides tips for partitioning and arranging the code and resources
for a product as you develop with Xcode.
■ "File Management" (page 37) describes how to edit file, folder, and framework references in your project.
It also describes how to change the way in which Xcode handles a file by changing its type, and how to
control the way a file is displayed and saved, by changing the file encoding and line ending.
■ "The Text Editor" (page 49) describes the Xcode text editor, shows how to open files in a standalone
window or in an editor pane, and how to control the appearance of the editor.
■ "Refactoring Code" (page 81) shows how to make your code easier to understand and maintain.
■ "Documentation Access" (page 91) discusses the documentation-viewing experience Xcode provides
through the Documentation window and Quick Help.
■ "Keyboard Shortcuts" (page 103) shows how to view and change the keyboard shortcuts for menu items
and key-based actions.
■ "User Scripts" (page 107) describes how to use predefined user scripts and how to create custom user
scripts.
■ "Resetting Xcode" (page 117) explains how to reset Xcode to its factory settings.

Organization of This Document 9

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 INTRODUCTION
Introduction

See Also

■ A Tour of Xcode provides a hands-on introduction to Xcode, Apple's comprehensive suite of software
development tools for Mac OS X.
■ Xcode Project Management Guide provides practical descriptions of the major development tasks developers
perform with Xcode.
■ Xcode Source Management Guide describes how to manage source changes using source control and
snapshots.

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 CHAPTER 1

The Project Window

The project window is where you do most of your work in Xcode. The project window displays and organizes
your source files, targets, and executables. It allows you to access and edit all the pieces of your project. To
work effectively in Xcode, you need to recognize the parts of the project window and understand how to
use them to navigate your project’s contents.

Of course, everyone has their own way of organizing their workspace. To help you be as efficient and
productive as possible, Xcode provides several project window layouts. A project window layout specifies a
particular arrangement for a project window, as well as ancillary task-specific windows.

This chapter introduces project window components and describes the available project window layouts. It
also introduces other important Xcode windows and provides tips on using the Xcode interface to locate
information on project items.

Project Window Components

Figure 1-1 identifies some of the components of the project window using the default layout. You can add,
remove, and configure these components to your liking.

Figure 1-1 The default project window layout

Hide detail view button Detail view

Toolbar

Groups and files list

Status bar

The project window contains the following key areas for navigating your project:

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 CHAPTER 1
The Project Window

■ Groups & Files list. Provides an outline view of your project contents. You can move files and folders
around and organize your project contents in this list. The current selection in the Groups & Files list
controls the contents displayed in the detail view.
■ Hide Detail View button. Double-clicking this button hides and shows the detail view.
■ Detail view. Shows the item or items selected in the Groups & Files list. You can browse your project’s
contents in the detail view, search them using the search field, or sort them according to column. The
detail view helps you rapidly find and access your project’s contents.
■ Toolbar. Provides quick access to the most common Xcode commands.
■ Status bar. Displays status messages for the project. During an operation—such as building or
indexing—Xcode displays a progress indicator in the status bar to show the progress of the current task.
■ Favorites bar. Lets you store and quickly return to commonly accessed locations in your project. To
display the favorites bar, choose View > Layout menu > Show Favorites Bar. For details about using the
favorites bar, see "Adding Items to the Favorites Bar" (page 33).

The project window also contains a text editor pane that lets you edit files directly in the project window.
You can navigate through the views in a window, except the text editor pane, by pressing Tab.

For a description of each of the available project window layouts, see "Project Window Layouts" (page 20).

The Groups & Files List

The Groups & Files list provides an outline view of your project’s contents. The contents of your project—files,
folders, targets, executables, and other project information—are organized into groups. A group collects
related files.

Using the Groups & Files list, you can:

■ View your project’s contents, organized hierarchically. You can choose how much of your project’s
contents to display at once.
■ View the SCM status of files.
■ Drag files, folders, groups, and other project items to rearrange and organize them.
■ Rename files, folders, and other project items.
■ Create additional Groups & Files list views to focus on multiple groups at once.

Group Types

The Groups & Files list contains two types of groups: static groups and smart groups, identified in Figure 1-2.

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Figure 1-2 Groups & Files list

Static groups

Smart groups

Static groups organize your project’s source files, including header files, implementation files, frameworks,
and other files. (Static groups are themselves grouped under the project group, which is named after the
project and is represented by the blue project icon.) A static group, identified by a yellow folder icon, can
contain any number of files and other static groups. Static groups help you organize the files in your project
into manageable chunks. The project group is a static group that contains all the files, frameworks, libraries,
and other resources included in your project.

Smart groups are subdivided into two types: built-in smart groups and custom smart groups.

■ Built-in smart groups contain particular classes of components, files, symbols, or items. You cannot
customize the contents of these groups. There are several built-in smart groups:
❏ Targets. Contains the targets in your project. A target contains the instructions for creating a software
component or product. Targets are described in more detail in Targets.
❏ Executables. Contains all the executables defined in your project.
❏ Errors and Warnings. Lists the errors and warnings generated when you build. This group is described
further in “Viewing Errors and Warnings” in Xcode Project Management Guide.
❏ Find Results. Contains the results of any searches you perform in your project. Each search creates
an entry in this group. For more information on the Find Results group, see “Viewing Search Results”
in Xcode Project Management Guide.
❏ Bookmarks. Lists locations—files or specific locations within a file—to which you can return easily.
For more information on the Bookmarks smart group, see "Defining Bookmarks" (page 34).
❏ SCM. Lists all the files that have source control information. See “Managing Files Under Source
Control” in Xcode Source Management Guide for details.
❏ Project Symbols. Lists the symbols defined in your project. This group is described further in "Viewing
the Symbols in Your Project" in Xcode Project Management Guide.

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The Project Window

■ Custom smart groups collect files that match a certain rule or pattern. These groups have purple folder
icons and you can customize their contents using wildcard patterns or regular expressions. There are
two types of smart groups: simple filter or simple regular expression. Xcode provides two predefined
custom smart groups:
❏ Implementation Files. Contains the implementation files in your project, such as those with the
extensions c, cpp, and m, to name a few.
❏ NIB Files. Contains the nib files used to create your product’s user interface.

For more information on using static groups and smart groups to organize your project items, see "Grouping
Files" (page 30).

Viewing the Contents of Groups

You have a couple of options for viewing the contents of a group in the Groups & Files list. If you prefer the
outline view, you can open the group directly in the Groups & Files list. You can also select one or more
groups to view their contents in a simple searchable list in the detail view (see "The Detail View" (page 16)
for details).

To view or hide the contents of a group in the Groups & Files list, use its disclosure triangle.

To view the contents of a group in the detail view, select the group in the Groups & Files list. In general, the
detail view shows more item information than the Groups & Files list.

You can display additional attributes for the items shown in the Groups & Files list using the shortcut menu
in the list header (Control-click the header to show the shortcut menu). A column for each attribute appears
on the left side of the list.

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Displaying and Hiding Smart Groups

As described in "Group Types" (page 12), an Xcode project has a number of smart groups that organize
particular types of project items. These groups help you find information such as symbols or build errors.
However, you may not need to display all the smart groups in the Groups & Files list.

To specify which smart groups the Groups & Files list displays, use the Preferences submenu in the shortcut
menu that appears when you Control-click an item in the Groups & Files list.

To rearrange a smart group, drag it to its new position in the Groups & Files list.

To delete a group, select it and choose Edit > Delete. You can restore deleted groups using the Preferences
menu described earlier.

Splitting the Groups & Files View

In large projects, the Groups & Files list can get long, making it difficult to move items around. You can split
the Groups & Files view for a project by clicking the Split button, shown in Figure 1-3.

Each Groups & Files view can display a different area of the Groups & Files list, making it easy to keep frequently
accessed groups handy or to move items between groups. You can drag the resize control between the views
to redistribute the space between them. To remove a Groups & Files view, click the Close Split button.

By default Xcode splits the view vertically. However, you can also split a view horizontally. To split a view
horizontally, hold down the Option key while clicking the Split button.

Figure 1-3 Split Groups & Files view

Split
Close split

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 CHAPTER 1
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The Detail View

As you learned, the Groups & Files view lets you see the contents of your project in an organized outline. In
contrast, the detail view shows you items in a flat list. You can quickly search and sort the items in this list,
gaining rapid access to important information in your project.

You control the scope of the information shown in the detail view with your selection in the Groups & Files
list. If the selected item is a group, the detail view displays information for all the members of that group
and of any subgroups that it contains. You can select multiple items in the Groups & Files list; the detail view
displays the selected items and their members.

Note: The content of groups such as frameworks and bundles is shown in the detail view only when that
framework or bundle is directly selected in the Groups & Files list, to avoid mixing items such as external
framework headers and project headers.

Information Displayed in the Detail View

The type of information displayed in the detail view varies, depending on the item selected in the Groups &
Files list. For example, if you select a group of source files in the Groups & Files list, the detail view displays
each of the files in that group, along with information about those files, such as the file’s build status or code
size. However, build status and code size make no sense for errors and warnings, so when you select the
Errors and Warnings group, you see a list of error and warning messages and the locations at which they
occur.

Figure 1-4 Detail view columns

Build errors
Code size Build warnings
File kind Build status Target membership

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This is the information available in the detail view:

■ File kind. The first column, with an empty column heading, shows an icon indicating the type of the file.
For example, a nib file is marked by the Interface Builder file icon. The icon for a C++ class file displays
the characters “C++”.
■ File Name. The File Name column displays the names of the files.
■ Build status. The column marked by the hammer icon displays the build status of each file. If a file has
been changed since the active target was last built, this column displays a checkmark, indicating that
the file needs to be built. If the file is up to date, this column is empty.
■ Code. The Code column displays the size of the compiled code generated from the file.
■ Build errors. The column marked by the error icon displays the number of errors in the file. If this column
is empty, the file either contains no errors or has not yet been built.
■ Warnings. The column marked by the warning icon displays the number of warnings for the file. If this
column is empty, the file either has no warnings or has not yet been built.
■ Target membership. The column marked by the target icon indicates whether the file is included in the
active target. If the checkbox next to a file is checked, then the active target includes that file.
■ SCM. The SCM column shows the SCM status of the file.
■ Path. The Path column shows the file system path to the item.
■ Comments. The Comments column displays any note or other information that you have associated
with the file in the Comments pane of the File Info window.

Not all of these columns are visible by default. You can choose which columns are shown in the detail view
by using the shortcut menu that appears when you Control-click anywhere in the header. You can display
many of these same columns in the Groups & Files list, using the same mechanism. For more information,
see "The Groups & Files List" (page 12) and "The Detail View" (page 16).

Note: Some columns in the detail view are required, depending on the currently selected group. These
columns do not appear in the shortcut menu.

You can display the columns of the detail view in any order. To reorder the columns, drag the heading of
any column to its new position.

You can also reveal the selected item in the detail view in the Groups & Files list. For example, if the current
selection in the detail view is an individual source file, Xcode selects that file in the Groups & Files list, disclosing
the contents of any static groups that the file belongs to, as necessary. To reveal the detail view selection in
the Groups & Files list, choose View > Reveal in Group Tree.

Searching and Sorting in the Detail View

With the detail view you have a couple of ways to find and view information. You can sort the contents of
the detail view according to the information in any of the visible categories simply by clicking the column
heading for that category. For example, to sort by filename, click the File Name heading.

Using the search field in the toolbar, you can quickly search the contents of the detail view. As you type,
Xcode filters the contents of the detail view, displaying only those items that have matching text in at least
one of the columns.

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The search field supports several types of search; you can choose the search type from the pop-up menu in
the search field. Xcode supports the following searches:

■ String Matching. Xcode determines a match using simple string comparison, filtering out items that do
not match the string in the search field. This is the default type of search for the search field. It is also
the fastest.
■ Wildcard Pattern. Xcode uses the wildcard pattern in the search field to find items that contain the
specified characters anywhere in any of the visible columns. For example, enter *View*.h to find all
header files with “View” in their name.
■ Regular Expression. Xcode uses the regular expression in the search field to find matching items. For
example, to find all C implementation and header files in a static group, enter \.(c|h)$

Figure 1-5 shows an example of a sting matching search.

Figure 1-5 Searching for files with “delegate” in their name

As you type, the status bar displays the scope of the search—the current selection in the Groups & Files
list—and the number of items found. Pressing the Home key or choosing the project item (indicated by the
project icon) from the search field’s pop-up menu changes the focus of the search field to the whole project.

The Project Window Toolbar

The project window toolbar gives you quick access to the most common Xcode commands. Figure 1-6 shows
the project window toolbar in the default layout (for more on project window layouts, see "Project Window
Layouts" (page 20)).

Figure 1-6 Project window toolbar

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■ Overview pop-up menu. The Overview menu provides a set of build factors that specify how to perform
the next build process. This menu lets you specify the active configuration, active executable, and active
architecture. For detailed information about these factors, see “Setting Build Factors” in Xcode Project
Management Guide.
■ Action pop-up menu. The Action button lets you perform common operations on the currently selected
item in the project window. The actions available from this menu are those appropriate for the selected
item; they are the same actions available in the shortcut menu that appears when you Control-click the
selected item. For example, when the current selection is a file, available operations include opening
the file in a separate editor, performing source control operations, and grouping files.
■ Build and Run button. The Build and Run button builds your product and runs it (breakpoints off ) or
debugs it (breakpoints on). Whether Xcode runs or debugs your product depends on the state of the
Breakpoints button (holding down Option also toggles the button’s action). When breakpoints are off,
the button’s label is Build and Debug.
■ Breakpoints button. The Breakpoints buttons toggles breakpoints on and off.
■ Tasks button. The Tasks button allows you to stop any Xcode operation currently in progress. The badge
in the bottom-right corner of the Tasks button indicates the operation that is stopped when you click
the button. If more than one operation is in progress, the Tasks button lets you select the one to stop
from its pop-up menu. For example, if you have both a build and a search running, you can stop either
operation by choosing it from the pop-up menu.
■ Info button. The Info button brings up an Info window for the selected item or items. Info windows let
you view and set various details of the selected item. See "The Inspector and Info Windows" (page 25)
for more information.
■ Search field. The search field allows you to search the items currently displayed in the detail view. As
you type, Xcode filters the list of items in the detail view to include only those items with matching
content in one of the visible columns. See "The Detail View" (page 16) for more information on using
the search field to find items in the detail view.

You can customize the project window toolbar by choosing View > Customize Toolbar and dragging toolbar
items into or out of the toolbar to get the set that is most useful to you.

The Project Window Status Bar

The project window status bar shows the progress of the current operation in Xcode. It gives you feedback
during potentially lengthy tasks, such as building, and also displays the results of those tasks. In particular,
the status bar lets you quickly access important information about project operations. From the status bar,
you can:

■ Click the progress indicator during an operation to open a more detailed account of the currently running
operations in the Activity Viewer window, described in "Viewing the Progress of Tasks in Xcode" (page
26).
■ Click the build result message, or error or warning icon, to open the Build Results window and view build
system commands and output. For more information on the ways in which Xcode displays the status of
build operations, see "Viewing Build Status" in Xcode Project Management Guide.

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 CHAPTER 1
The Project Window

Project Window Layouts

There are many factors affecting the optimal workspace arrangement for you. Ask yourself questions such
as the following: How much screen real estate do I have? What do I spend most of my time working on? How
many projects do I normally have open at once?

Configuring your working environment to allow you to be as productive as possible is critical. Whatever your
preferred workflow, Xcode provides several project window layouts for you to choose from. Xcode defines
the following layouts:

■ Default. This configuration provides the traditional Xcode project window arrangement, shown in Figure
1-1 (page 11). The default layout combines outline and detail views to let you quickly navigate your
project.
■ Condensed. This layout provides a smaller, simpler project window with an outline view of your project
contents and separate windows for common tasks, such as debugging and building.
■ All-in-one. This layout provides a single project window that lets you perform all the tasks typical of
software development—such as debugging, viewing build results, searching, and so forth—within a
single window.

You set the window layout for your environment in the General pane in Xcode preferences. From the Layout
menu, choose the Default, Condensed, or All-In-One layouts. Selecting a layout from this menu shows a brief
description of the layout below the menu. Note that you cannot change the project window layout when
any projects are open; you must first close all open projects. The project window layout is a user-specific
setting; it applies to all projects that you open on your computer.

This section describes each project window layout and the differences between them.

The Default Layout

The default project window layout, shown in Figure 1-1 (page 11), contains three main views:

■ Groups & Files view. Contains a list your project contents, as described in "The Groups & Files List" (page
12).
■ Detail view. Shows a flat list of the items selected in the Groups & Files list, as described in "The Detail
View" (page 16). In the default layout, you can hide the detail view by collapsing the project window.

To hide the detail view, double-click the button in the Groups & Files view. Double-clicking the
button a second time shows the detail view again.
In addition, you can customize the project window toolbar shown in each of these states. To do so,
collapse or expand the project window to the appropriate state and customize the toolbar in the usual
way, described in "The Project Window Toolbar" (page 18). Xcode stores the contents of the toolbar for
each state separately.
■ Text editor pane. In the default layout, you can choose to view and edit all files within the project
window, using the text editor pane. Or, you can choose to have Xcode use a separate editor window
and use only the Groups & Files list and the detail view in the project window.

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The Project Window

Although you can accomplish most of your daily development tasks in the project window, Xcode also
provides a number of other task-specific windows that let you focus on a particular part of the development
process. Table 1-1 shows the separate windows available in the default layout.

Table 1-1 Additional windows available with the default project window layout

Window Use to

Build Results View the build system output generated when you build a target.

Debugger Debug your program; you can control execution of your code; view threads, stack frames
and variables; and so forth.

SCM View the status of files under source control.

Project Find Search for text, symbol definitions, and regular expressions in your project.

Console View information or messages logged by your program when running in Xcode and interact
with the debugger on the command line and see debugger commands and output.

Class Browser View the class hierarchy of your project and browse classes and class members.

Breakpoints View and edit all breakpoints set in your project.

Bookmarks View your project’s bookmarked locations in a dedicated window.

The Condensed Layout

The condensed layout provides a smaller, more compact version of the project window, shown in Figure 1-7.
In this layout, the project window contains several panes, each showing a subset of the items in your project
in the Groups & Files list. You can switch between these panes using the buttons below the toolbar.

Figure 1-7 The condensed project window

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The Project Window

The condensed project window layout contains three panes:

■ Files shows your project and all the static groups in your project.
■ Targets shows the targets and executables defined in your project.
■ Other shows the remaining smart groups. This includes the standard smart groups defined by Xcode,
as well as any smart groups you have added to the project.

You can jump to any of the built-in smart groups, opening the appropriate pane if necessary, by choosing
an item from the Smart Groups submenu of the View menu.

The condensed layout provides the same additional windows as the Default layout, listed in Table 1-1 (page
21). The condensed layout also includes the additional windows shown in Table 1-2.

Table 1-2 Additional windows available with the condensed project window layout

Window Use to

Editor Edit project files. Although each of the available layouts let you open files in a separate editor
window, the condensed project window is the only one that does not include an attached editor;
when you open a file from the project window, Xcode opens a new editor window.

Detail View and search your project’s contents in a simple list. The condensed layout does not include
a detail view in the project window; however, by choosing View > Detail, you can open a separate
Detail window that includes a Groups & Files list on the left side of the window and a detail view
on the right side.

The All-in-One Layout

The all-in-one project window layout provides a single project window in which you can perform all the tasks
necessary for software development. In this layout, you can edit files, view project items in an outline view
or detail view, view build system output, run and debug your executable, search, and more. The all-in-one
layout provides two views, or pages. To switch between pages, use the Page toolbar item, shown in Figure
1-8 (page 23). The available pages are:

■ Project. This page lets you perform general project management tasks, such as searching, sorting and
viewing SCM status. To display the project page, click the Project Page button.
■ Debug. This page includes an integrated debugger view, similar to the standalone debugger window
available with the other layouts. To display the debug page, click the debug-page button.

In the all-in-one layout the project window has a page-specific toolbar, which contains items specific to the
development tasks performed in that page.

The Project Page

The project page, shown in Figure 1-8, lets you perform typical project management tasks. You can view the
contents of your project in outline view, search for project items in the detail view, perform a projectwide
find, and view status for the files under source control in your project.

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The Project Window

Figure 1-8 The all-in-one project window

The project page contains the Groups & Files list, which shows the contents of your project in outline view;
a text editor pane, which lets you edit source files right in the project window; and a tabbed view, which lets
you switch between several panes, each of which provides an interface for a common project management
task. These panes are:

■ Detail. This pane includes the detail view, which lets you view additional information about project items
selected in the Group & Files list or quickly filter project items. The detail view is described in "The Detail
View" (page 16).
■ Project Find. This pane lets you perform projectwide searches and view search results. The interface is
the same as that provided by the Project Find window in other layouts.
■ SCM Results. This pane opens a dedicated view displaying only those project items under source control
and their status. It is similar to what you see in the SCM window with other layouts.
■ Build. This pane provides an interface for common build tasks. It lets you see the progress of your build,
view errors and warnings, and see the console log.

Other Windows in the All-In-One Layout

The all-in-one layout is designed to let you perform project management tasks in the project window; it does,
however, include a few additional windows, listed in Table 1-3. These windows let you view content already
available from the project window in a separate window, should you choose to do so.

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The Project Window

Table 1-3 Additional windows available with the all-in-one layout

Window Use to

Class Browser View the class hierarchy of your project and browse classes and class members.

Breakpoints View and edit all breakpoints set in your project.

Bookmarks View your project’s bookmarked locations in a dedicated window.

Project Find Perform a projectwide search and view search results in a separate window. This window
shows the same information as the Project Find pane of the project page.

SCM View the status of files under source control in your project. This window contains the same
information as the SCM pane of the project page.

Saving Changes to the Current Layout

The project window layouts give you the flexibility to choose the arrangement that best suits your preferred
workflow. You can further customize your work environment by saving the changes that you make to the
windows in an open project and applying them to all projects using that layout.

For example, in the condensed layout the project window has three panes, each of them focused on a
particular subset of a project’s groups. The Files pane shows only the project group, which contains all files
and folders in the project. The Other pane shows all smart groups. If you want access to both your project
files and your bookmarked locations in the same pane, you could add the Bookmarks smart group to the
Files pane by dragging it from the Other pane to the Files button and then the Files pane.

Note: If the Bookmarks smart group exists in another pane, choosing View > Smart Groups > Bookmarks
opens that pane in the project window. However, if you have previously deleted the smart group from the
project window, choosing View > Smart Groups > Bookmarks adds that smart group to the current pane.

To save this change, and have the Bookmarks smart group appear in the Files pane for all projects using the
condensed layout, choose Window > Defaults.

In the dialog that Xcode displays, click Make Layout Default to save your changes to the current layout.
Clicking Restore To Factory Default discards all of your changes—both current changes and those you’ve
previously saved—to the current layout. Xcode restores the original configuration settings for the layout.

You can save changes to:

■ Window size and position

■ Visibility of views—whether they are hidden or revealed—in a window
■ Contents and visibility of Groups & Files panes (condensed layout)
■ The default set of toolbar items

The “Save window state” option in General preferences saves the state of the open windows for each project
when you close that project. However, when you choose Window > Defaults, you save layout details that
apply to all projects when you open them using the modified layout.

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 CHAPTER 1
The Project Window

The Inspector and Info Windows

Knowing how to use Xcode’s user interface to find and view project items and information is essential to
working efficiently in Xcode. Xcode gives you a number of ways to find and access project contents. In
previous sections, you learned how to use the Groups & Files list to see an organized outline view of your
project and how to use the detail view to quickly filter project contents. Using these tools, you can view as
wide or as narrow a cross-section of your project as you choose.

These tools, however, aren’t as useful when you wish to view or modify individual items in your project. For
this, Xcode provides inspector and Info windows. These windows are for managing the selected item’s
essential details. For any particular item in your project, its Info window and the inspector display the same
information. However, the two windows behave differently.

The amount of information visible in the status bar is limited and it reflects only operations in the current
project. To let you view a more detailed account of all operations in Xcode, Xcode provides the Activity Viewer
window (see "Viewing the Progress of Tasks in Xcode" (page 26)).

The inspector tracks the current selection in the project window. As you select different files, targets, and
groups in the project window, the inspector changes to show information about that item.

The Info window continues to display information about the items that were selected in the project window
when you opened it, regardless of the current selection. You can have multiple Info windows open at a time,
each describing a different set of items of your project.

The Info button in the project window toolbar displays an Info window for the currently selected item. You
can add an Inspector button to the toolbar.

You can also use menu commands (or their keyboard shortcuts) to display Info windows or the inspector
window. Choose File > Get Info to display an Info window. Hold down the Option key and choose File >
Show Inspector to display the inspector.

Xcode provides Info windows and inspectors for the following project items:

■ File and folder references

■ User-defined smart groups
■ Localized file variants
■ Targets
■ Executable environments
■ Build phases
■ The project itself

The type of information displayed depends on the type of item you are editing. Specific Info windows are
described in more detail where the items that they modify—files, targets, projects, groups, and so forth—are
discussed. In general, however, if you are at a loss as to how to make a change to a basic project item, try
displaying its Info window. Throughout this document, wherever the inspector window is used, remember
that you can also use an Info window, and vice versa.

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The Project Window

Viewing the Progress of Tasks in Xcode

The Activity Viewer window lets you watch the tasks currently in progress in Xcode. While the Tasks button
in the project window toolbar lets you control the progress of tasks in the current project (such as a program
launched by Xcode in order to debug it), the Activity Viewer lets you see the progress of all Xcode tasks across
all open projects. The Activity Viewer provides a single, persistent window that you can leave open to monitor
the progress of all running tasks. To open the Activity Window, shown in Figure 1-9, choose Window > Activity
Viewer.

You can also click the progress indicator in the project window status bar.

Figure 1-9 Activity Viewer window

The operations in the Activity Viewer are grouped by project; you can show or hide the operations specific
to any project using the disclosure triangle next to the project name. To stop any of the tasks shown in the
Activity Viewer, simply click the stop sign icon next to that task. You can cancel the most recently initiated
operation in the active project by pressing Command–period.

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 CHAPTER 2

Project Organization

Some of the design decisions you make when you first set up a project—such as how many targets you need
for your software development effort—affect your entire development experience. This chapter provides
tips for partitioning and arranging the code and resources for a product as you develop with Xcode. It also
describes some of the features Xcode provides that let you group information for rapid and easy access. For
instance, you can save commonly accessed locations as bookmarks or in the favorites bar, or you can document
project items by adding comments to them.

Software Development Tips

The following are some general guidelines for developing your software in Xcode. In subsequent sections,
you’ll get more detailed information to flesh out these tips.

■ Follow standard software development practice to factor your software into logical units of reasonable
size, which you can implement as applications, shared libraries, tools, plug-ins, and so on. In Xcode, each
of these products requires one target.
■ Put together projects and targets based on how you answer the following sorts of questions:
❏ How do the products interact?
❏ How many individuals (or teams) will be working on each product?
❏ Do the products use different source control systems?
❏ Must the products run on different versions of the target platform?

■ For smaller development tasks, it generally makes sense to keep targets for related products in a single
project.
■ For products that are reasonably separate, and especially if they are to be implemented by separate
teams, use multiple projects.
■ Use cross-project references when targets in one project need to depend on targets in other projects.
■ Use the information in "Build Locations" in Xcode Project Management Guide to ensure that a target can
access the build products of other targets when needed.

Dividing Your Work into Projects and Targets

To develop software with Xcode, you are going to need at least one project, containing at least one target,
and producing at least one product. Those are the basic structures you use for all your development.

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Project Organization

Beyond that, there are no hard and fast rules for how you divide your work. For simple products or products
that are closely tied together, you might use a single project with multiple targets. For large development
tasks with many products, and especially with separate development teams, you’ll want to use multiple
projects and targets, perhaps connected with cross-project dependencies.

The following sections provide additional information and tips on laying out your software.

Identifying the Scope

In partitioning your software, many decisions depend on the scope of the design goal and the number of
products it requires. For example, if you’re working alone on a simple application, you can create a project
for the desired application type (such as a Cocoa or Carbon application) and get right to work. Here are some
of the decisions you might face:

■ If you decide to move some code to an internal library, you might add a target for the library.
■ To take advantage of existing code in another project, you might choose to develop the existing code
as a shared library and add a dependency so that the application project depends on the shared library
project and makes use of its output.
■ You might choose not to use a source code management (SCM) system, although even simple projects
can sometimes benefit from such use.

Suppose, however, that you are working on a more complex software design, one that will be implemented
by several individuals or development teams. Let’s say you are asked to create an application for an easy-to-use
recording studio. You may already have components of this application, such as a shared library for presenting
music tracks. As you refine the product specification, you identify other common tasks that might belong in
a shared library, tool, or companion application. You determine that the main application should rely on
Apple technologies to provide certain features, such as burning CDs or making the application scriptable.

Eventually, you identify a set of products to build, which gives you a good idea of the scope of the task. And
that in turn can help you determine how to partition it into Xcode projects and targets.

Trade-Offs of Putting Many Targets in One Project

You can help determine whether to put many or all your targets in one project by considering some of the
trade-offs involved. Here are some of the advantages of combining multiple targets in one project:

■ Indexing works across all targets. Indexing information is required to access classes in the class browser,
view symbols in the Project Symbols smart group, and to take full advantage of code completion. It is
also necessary to use Command–double-click to jump to a definition and to use symbolic counterparts.
■ You can easily set up dependencies between targets in the project.
■ Anyone using the project has access to all its files.
■ If your computer has multiple CPUs or you have access to additional computers on your network, you
can use parallel builds or distributed builds to improve the build time of a large project. See “Building
in Parallel” in Xcode Project Management Guide and Reducing Build Times for details.

Here are some of the disadvantages of putting all your targets in one project:

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Project Organization

■ All of the code is visible to any individuals or teams using the project, even if they’re working on only
one target or a small subset of the overall project.
■ The project size may become unwieldy; this can cause Xcode to take a long time to perform operations
such as indexing.
■ All targets must use the same SCM system.
■ All targets must build using the same SDK.
■ You can’t use the Xcode debugger to debug two executables in one project at the same time.

Trade-Offs of Using Multiple Projects

There are also trade-offs in breaking up a software product into multiple projects and targets. Here are some
of the advantages of using multiple projects:

■ You can use the project as a unit for dividing work among different individuals or teams. The separate
projects allow you to segregate the code (for example, to limit access to confidential information).
■ Each project can be of a more manageable size, and Xcode can perform indexing, building, and other
operations more quickly.
■ If projects need to share outputs, they can build into a common directory, as described in "Build Locations"
in Xcode Project Management Guide.
■ You can use cross-project references to build other projects needed by the current project.
■ Each project can use source code stored in a different SCM system. However, if individuals have physical
access to other projects, it is still possible to look at SCM information from multiple projects that use the
same SCM system.
■ Each project can use different SDKs.
■ Each project can define a separate list of build configurations.
■ You can use the debugger to debug two or more executables at the same time, one in each project. This
is useful when products communicate directly or otherwise interact.

Here are some of the disadvantages of having multiple projects and targets:

■ You don’t have cross-project indexing, and thus you have access only to symbols that are specifically
exposed by other projects. This means, for example, that you can’t automatically look up definitions in
other projects unless you have physical access to them (not just to their end products).
Similarly, you cannot take full advantage of other features that depend on indexing. That includes using
code completion, using Command–double-click to jump to a definition, refactoring, and using symbolic
counterparts.
■ Management of many smaller projects is likely to incur additional overhead. For example, to set up a
target that depends on other targets in multiple projects, you must first set up cross-project references.
Similarly, use of multiple projects may require additional communication between teams.
■ For an individual working on multiple projects, it may become unwieldy to switch between many open
projects. This problem, however, may be alleviated by using the Organizer (see Using the Organizer for
details).
■ Individual projects are smaller and are less likely to be able to take advantage of distributed builds.

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Project Organization

Grouping Files

Decisions about how to partition projects and their targets affect the design of your entire software
development effort. It is also important that your work in a project be organized and accessible to you.
Particularly in larger projects, the number of files can be daunting. To help arrange files into manageable
chunks, Xcode lets you group them.

A group lets you collect related files together. A static group lets you group an arbitrary set of file, folder,
and framework references in your project. A smart group, on the other hand, lets you group together files
fitting a particular pattern or rule. This section shows you how to group files using static groups and smart
groups.

Grouping Files into Static Groups

In the Groups & Files list, static groups look like folders, but don’t have to correspond to folders on the file
system. You can instead arrange files into groups that make sense to you while working on them in Xcode.
For example, in a project containing multiple targets, your project could store all the nib files in one folder
and all the implementation files in another folder on the file system. And in the Groups & Files list, you could
group the files according to target; that is, the nib files and implementation files for target A would be in
one group, the nib files and implementation files for target B would be in another group, and so on. A group
doesn’t affect how a target is built.

Creating a Static Group

You can create a static group in any of the following ways:

■ Create an empty group. Choose Project > New Group and type the name for the group.
■ Create a group from existing items. Select the items you want to group and choose Project > Group.
■ Create a group based on an existing directory structure. Choose Project > Add to Project. Then select
the folder, and select “Recursively create groups for added folders.”

Adding Files to a Group

You can add files to a group at any time by dragging the file icons to the group’s folder in the Groups & Files
list. A line appears to indicate where you are moving the files. Xcode automatically expands groups as you
drag items to them.

Deleting Groups

When you remove a group from your project, you can choose whether to remove the files in that group from
the project or simply ungroup the files.

■ To remove a group and the project’s references to the files in that group, select the group, and press
Delete.
■ To remove a group and keep the files it contains, select the group and choose Ungroup from its shortcut
menu.

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Using Smart Groups

Smart groups are also represented by folder icons in the Groups & Files list; however, they are colored purple
to distinguish them from static groups. As mentioned earlier, smart groups group files that adhere to a
common pattern or rule. For example, you could define a smart group to collect all implementation files
ending in .m or .c. When you make a change to your project that alters the set of files matching a smart
group’s rule—for example, adding a .c file—the smart group automatically updates to reflect the change.
You do not need to add files to a smart group yourself. In fact, Xcode does not allow you to drag files to a
smart group.

Creating a Smart Group

To create a smart group, choose Project > New Smart Group. Then choose one of the following options:

■ Simple Filter Smart Group. Creates a smart group that collects files whose names contain a specified
string.
■ Simple Regular Expression Smart Group. Creates a smart group that uses a regular expression to specify
the pattern that filenames must follow.

Xcode adds a smart group of the selected type to your project and brings up the Smart Group Info window,
which allows you to configure the group. Xcode provides templates for each type of smart group; it uses
these templates to configure new smart groups with a default set of options. For example, the default Simple
Filter Smart Group collects all files with *.nib in their name. The default Simple Regular Expression Smart
Group collects all C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Java, and AppleScript implementation files in your
project.

Configuring a Smart Group

To configure a smart group, select the group in the Groups & Files list and open the Smart Group Info window,
shown in Figure 2-1.

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Project Organization

Figure 2-1 Smart Group Info window

Here is what the Smart Group Info window contains:

■ Name field. The name of the smart group. By default, this is set to the type of the smart group, for
example, “Simple Filter Smart Group.”
■ Image. The icon used for the smart group in the project window. The default image for a smart group
is the purple folder icon, but you can also use a custom image to represent your smart group. To change
the icon, click the Choose button and navigate to the image file to use.
■ Start From menu. Specifies the directory from which the smart group starts its search for matching files;
by default, this is the project folder. If the Recursively option is selected, the smart group also searches
through subdirectories of that folder.
■ Using Pattern field. The actual pattern that files must match in order to be included in the smart group.
As mentioned, this pattern can be either a simple string that the smart group filters on or a regular
expression, depending on the setting of the options beneath the field. For examples of each of these,
look at the smart group templates. The Simple Filter Smart Group template uses the pattern *.nib. Any
files with .nib in their name are included in this smart group. The Simple Regular Expression Smart
Group, on the other hand, uses the regular expression \.(c|cpp|C|CPP|m|mm|java|sh|scpt)$ to
collect all implementation files ending in any one of these suffixes, regardless of the case of the filename
and extension. For more information on regular expressions, see the POSIX specification.

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■ Save For menu. Determines the scope for which this smart group is defined. You can have the smart
group appear in all your projects, or you can specify that the smart group be specific to the current
project.

Viewing Groups and Files

As you learned in "The Project Window" (page 11), you have two ways to view the contents of your project.
You can view the groups and files in your project in outline view to see a hierarchical representation of your
project layout. Or you can view the groups and files in your project as a simple list, in the detail view. The
detail view presents a flat list of all the files contained in the group selected in the Groups & Files list. For
example, if you select your project in the Groups & Files list, the detail view shows all the files in the project.
If you select an individual file in the Groups & Files list, only that file is displayed in the detail view. To view
the contents of a group in the detail view, select that group in the Groups & Files list. See "The Detail
View" (page 16) for more information about the detail view.

Saving Frequently Accessed Locations

In any project, there are locations that you find yourself accessing again and again: files that you edit frequently,
headers that you browse, even smart groups that you use often. Xcode lets you save locations that you access
frequently and provides ways for you to jump to these locations. This section describes how to take advantage
of bookmarks and the favorites bar to provide quick access to project contents.

Adding Items to the Favorites Bar

The favorites bar in the project window lets you save frequently accessed items and return to them quickly.
To show the favorites bar, choose View > Layout > Show Favorites Bar.

To add an item to the favorites bar, simply drag it to the favorites bar in the project window. You can save
any of the same locations you can bookmark, including files, documentation, URLs, and so forth. In addition,
you can add smart groups and static groups to the favorites bar. The Groups & Files list can get quite long
as you reveal the contents of more and more groups, scrolling the items at the bottom of the list out of view.
You can add groups—including any of the built-in smart groups—to the favorites bar to quickly jump to
that group in the Groups & Files list.

To reorder items in the favorites bar, drag them to the desired location; dragging an item off of the favorites
bar removes the item from the favorites bar. To rename an item in the favorites bar, Option-click the item
and type the new name. This changes the name of the entry in the favorites bar; it does not affect the name
of the actual item that the entry represents.

To open a saved location, click it in the favorites bar. If the item in the favorites bar is a container, such as a
group or folder, it is a pop-up menu that you use to navigate through the contents. Each of the items in the
favorites bar serves as a proxy for the actual item. Thus, Control-clicking the item brings up the item shortcut
menu, which allows you to perform operations appropriate for the selected item.

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Defining Bookmarks
Another way that Xcode lets you navigate your project and provide easy access to the information you need
is with bookmarks. If you have files or locations in your project that you access often, you can bookmark
them and return to those locations at any time simply by opening the bookmark.

To create a bookmark, select the location you want to bookmark and choose Edit > Add to Bookmarks.

Xcode automatically names some bookmarks. For items such as symbols, Xcode prompts you for the name
of the bookmark; you can enter a name to help you remember which location the bookmark indicates, or
you can use the name Xcode assigns. You can bookmark project files, documentation, URLs, and so forth.

You can see the bookmarks in your project in several ways:

■ Bookmarks smart group. Select the Bookmarks group in the Groups & Files list to see the bookmarks
in the detail view. The detail view shows the name and file of all the bookmarks in your project. If the
editor pane is open, selecting a bookmark opens that location in the editor. Otherwise, you can
double-click the bookmark to open the bookmarked location in a separate editor window.
■ Bookmarks window. To open this window, double-click the Bookmarks smart group. You can see all
bookmarks in your project in this window; double-click any of these bookmarks to open the location.
■ Bookmarks menu. This pop-up menu resides in the navigation bar of the text editor. It contains the
bookmarks for the current file. Choose any bookmarked location from this menu to open it in the editor,
as described in "A Tour of the Text Editor" (page 49).

Adding Comments to Project Items

To help you keep track of your project contents, you can write comments and associate them with any of
the items in your project. Xcode remembers these comments across sessions. In this way, you can document
your project and its components, keep design notes, or track improvements you still wish to make. This is
especially useful if you are working with large or complex projects that have many pieces, or if you are working
with a team of developers and have multiple people modifying the project.

For example, imagine a large project containing targets that build a suite of applications, a framework used
by each of those applications, a command-line tool for debugging, and a handful of plug-ins for the
applications. With such a large number of targets it might be hard to keep track of exactly what each of the
products created by those targets does. To make it easier to remember what each of them does, you could
add a short description of the product that it creates to the target’s comments. This also aids others who
may be working on the project with you; if they can read the comments, they can quickly get up to speed
with the project and easily learn about changes made by other members of the development team.

To add comments to a project item:

1. Select that item in the Groups & Files list or in the detail view and open its Info window.

2. Click Comments to open the Comments pane.

This pane contains a single text field into which you can type any information you wish. To add comments,
click in the Comments field and type your entry. You can also link to additional resources from the
Comments pane; hypertext links, email addresses and other URLs are actionable in this field.

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You can add comments to any project item except smart groups, including projects, targets, files, and
executables. You can view comments you have added to project items in the detail view and you can search
the content of those comments using the search field. If the Comments column is not already visible, use
the shortcut menu of the detail view header to display it.

General Preferences

The General pane of Xcode preferences lets you control general environment settings for the Xcode application,
such as your project window configuration and windowing preferences. Figure 2-2 shows the General pane.

Figure 2-2 General preferences pane

Here is what the pane contains:

■ Layout. This menu lets you choose the project window configuration for all projects. See "Project Window
Layouts" (page 20) for a description of the available layouts.
■ Editing. These options control Xcode’s windowing policy for editor windows. See "A Tour of the Text
Editor" (page 49) to learn more about the Xcode editor. The options are:
❏ Open counterparts in same editor. Specifies how Xcode displays files when jumping to a related
header or source file, or to a related symbol definition or declaration. If this option is selected, Xcode
opens file and symbol counterparts in the current editor window; otherwise, it opens a separate
editor to display the counterpart. "Opening Header Files and Other Related Files" (page 38) describes
how to jump to a file’s or symbol’s counterpart.
❏ Automatically open/close attached editor. Specifies when Xcode shows or hides the editor pane
attached to the project, Build Results, Project Find, or Debugger windows. If this option is selected,
Xcode automatically shows the attached editor for a window when you select an editable item. See
"Using Text Editor Panes" (page 54) for more information on attached editors.

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■ Workspace.
❏ Reopen projects on Xcode launch. Specifies whether Xcode reopens the projects that were open
when it last quit.
❏ Restore state of auxiliary windows. Specifies whether Xcode restores the state of the windows in
projects upon opening them.

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 CHAPTER 3

File Management

For each file, framework, and folder added to a project, Xcode stores a number of important details, such as
the path to the file and the file’s type. You can view and edit information for file, framework, and folder
references in the File Info window.

This chapter describes how to create files and edit file, folder, and framework references in a project. It also
describes how to change the way in which Xcode handles a file by changing its type and how to control the
way a file is displayed and saved by changing the file encoding and line ending.

Creating Files

As you develop software, you will often need to create files. You can create standalone files or files that are
to be part of a project. Xcode provides file templates for several kinds of file, including source files, nib files,
and iPhone Settings schema files. If you have projects open when you create a file, Xcode adds the newly
created file to the current project, unless you specify a different project.

To create a file and add it to a project:

1. In the Groups & Files list of the project you want to add file to, select the static group into which you
want the file to be added. This step is optional (you can move files between static groups by dragging
them, as described in "Adding Files to a Group" (page 30)).

2. Choose File > New File and choose the template from which you want to create the file in the New File
dialog.

3. Specify a filename and a location for the file. If you’re adding a C-based source file, you have to option
of creating the corresponding header file.

4. Select the targets you want the file to be a member of. To learn more about adding files to targets, see
“Targets”.

To learn more about how Xcode manages files in projects, see “Files in Projects”.

Opening Files

Xcode offers several ways to open files, depending on your current context. The following sections describe
these mechanisms.

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Opening Project Files

If you already have a project window open, you can open a file by selecting it in the Groups & Files list in
that window. If you have the text editor pane open inside the project window, clicking the filename opens
the file in the editor. Otherwise, double-clicking the file in the Groups & Files list opens the file in a separate
editor window.

If a filename is in red, Xcode cannot find the file. Set the correct path to the file in the File Info window.

If you have the text editor open and you have previously opened the file you want to open, you can choose
the file from the File History pop-up menu in the navigation bar (see "Navigation Bar" (page 50) for more
information).

Opening Header Files and Other Related Files

You can quickly open a header or source file that’s related to the file displayed in the text editor.

To open the related header for an implementation file open in the editor, and vice versa, choose View >
Switch to Header/Source File.

For example, if main.c is in the editor, this command opens main.h; if main.h is in the editor, it opens
main.c.

You can also view the current file’s include group (all the files that the file includes, as well as all the files that
include it). To view the list of files that the file in the editor includes and that include this file, use the Included
Files pop-up menu, , in the navigation bar of the text editor. The name of the current file is in the
middle of the menu. Above it are the names of the files that this file includes. Below it are the names of the
files that include this file. To open one of the files, choose it from the menu.

Opening Superclasses and Subclasses

Similar to opening header files, you can open the declarations of superclasses and subclasses in C and
Objective-C source files using the Class Hierarchy pop-up menu, , in the navigation bar.

Opening Files by Filename or Symbol Name

There may be times when you need to open a file whose location you don’t know or want to open the file
that defines a particular symbol, such as a variable, method, or class. To assist you in those occasions, Xcode
provides the Open Quickly command, which lets you open files by filename or by the symbols they define.
Open Quickly searches are case insensitive and limited to the current project and the active SDK (see “Building
with Xcode” in Xcode Project Management Guide for more information).

To open a file quickly:

1. Choose File > Open Quickly to display the Open Quickly dialog (Figure 3-1).

2. In the search field, type the name of the file or symbol you want to view.

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You can also select a filename or symbol name in the text editor and display the Open Quickly dialog to
prefill the dialog’s search field with the selected text. When opening header files referenced in #include
and #import statements, you need only to place the cursor on the referent line and display the Open
Quickly dialog to start the header-file search.

3. From the search results list, select the files you want to open and click Open.

Figure 3-1 The Open Quickly dialog

As you type text in the search field, Xcode updates the search results list. The search field also maintains a
list of previously used search terms.

In filename-based searches, Xcode searches for header files, implementation files, model files, nib files, plist
files, and project packages. In symbol name–based searches, it searches source-code files only.

Specifying How Files Are Opened

You can temporarily change how a file is viewed and edited, or permanently change how files of a certain
type are viewed and edited. For example, you can choose to view a particular HTML file as plain text, so you
can edit it instead of viewing it as rendered HTML. To specify how a file is viewed, you can do any of the
following:

■ To have files of a certain type always open in a specific editor, change the preferred editor for that file
type to that editor. (See "Specifying the Editor Type for a File Type" (page 40).)
■ To have files of a certain type always open in the application specified for them in the Finder, change
the preferred editor for that file type to Open With Finder. (See "Opening Files with Your Preferred
Application" (page 42).)
■ To temporarily force Xcode to treat a file as a different file type, and open it with the appropriate editor,
use the Open As command in the file’s shortcut menu (Control-click).
■ To temporarily force Xcode to open a file with the default application chosen for it in the Finder, use the
Open With Finder command in the file’s shortcut menu.

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Note: HTML files are handled differently. If Xcode determines that an HTML file is documentation, Xcode
assumes you want to view the file and displays the file with its built-in HTML viewer. Otherwise, Xcode
assumes you want to edit the file and uses its built-in text editor.

Specifying the Editor Type for a File Type

You can permanently change how Xcode edits a particular type of file. In particular, you can specify how files
of a certain type are treated, and you can choose which editor Xcode uses to handle those files. For example,
you can choose to edit all your source files in BBEdit.

These are the main editor types in Xcode:

■ Source Code File. The Xcode text editor lets you view and edit these files.
■ Plain Text File. The Xcode text editor lets you view and edit these files.
■ External Editor. These files are opened with an external text editor. See "Opening Files with an External
Editor" (page 41) for details.
■ Open With Finder. These files are opened with the application the Finder associates with them. See
"Opening Files with Your Preferred Application" (page 42) for details.

File Types preferences lists all the folder and file types that Xcode handles and the editor type for each of
those types. These file and folder types are organized into groups, from the most general to the most specific.
The Preferred Editor column shows the editor type to which each file type is associated.

To change the editor type for a particular file type, choose the the editor type from the Preferred Editor
pop-up menu of the file type. For example, to make Xcode let you edit HTML files—except documentation—in
the text editor as source code, choose Source Code File from the Preferred Editor pop-up menu for the
file/text/text.html file type, as shown in Figure 3-2.

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Figure 3-2 File Types preferences pane

Note: You must close and reopen your project for the changes to take effect.

File type entries are organized into groups, from most general to most specific. For example, the audio.mp3
and audio.aiff file types belong to the “audio” group, which belongs to the “file” group. In this way, you
can control the default editor used for an entire class of files. To see the file types in a group, click the disclosure
triangle next to that group.

You can also specify an external editor to use or have Xcode use the user’s preferred application, as specified
by the Finder, when opening files of a given type, as described in "Opening Files with an External Editor" (page
41) and "Opening Files with Your Preferred Application" (page 42).

Opening Files with an External Editor

Xcode does not limit you to using its text editor to view and edit your files. You can specify an external editor
as the preferred editor for opening files of a given type. To choose an external editor for all files of a particular
type:

1. Open Xcode preferences and go to the File Types pane.

2. Find the appropriate file type and click in the Preferred Editor column; a menu appears.

3. Choose an option from the External Editor submenu.

These are the supported external editors:

■ BBEdit

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■ Text Wrangler
■ SubEthaEdit
■ emacs

■ xemacs

■ vi

Note: Some of these external editors do not appear in the External Editor menu unless they are installed
on your computer.
Support for vi in Xcode is limited to opening the file in the editor.

For example, to edit all your source files with BBEdit, choose External Editor > BBEdit from the Preferred
Editor pop-up menu for the file/text/sourcecode file type.

There are some restrictions when using an external editor:

■ When you build a project, Xcode lists modified files and asks whether you want to save them. Files in
BBEdit and Text Wrangler are listed, but files in other editors are not. You need to save those files yourself
before starting a build.
■ When you double-click a find result or a build error, most editors do not scroll to the line with the find
result or error. BBEdit and Text Wrangler can.

To use emacs as an external editor, you must add these lines to your ~/.emacs file:

(autoload 'gnuserv-start "gnuserv-compat"

"Allow this Emacs process to be a server for client processes." t)
(gnuserv-start)

Xcode defines the PBXEmacsPath and PBXXEmacsPath user defaults for specifying paths to the emacs and
xemacs editors, respectively. By default, these paths are set to /usr/bin/emacs and /usr/bin/xemacs;
however, you can change them to use a custom built editor. For more information, see Xcode User Default
Reference.

Opening Files with Your Preferred Application

You can choose to open a file with the application chosen for it in the Finder. This lets you open files that
Xcode cannot handle, or view a file using your preferred file editor. If you edit a file in almost any other
application, Xcode cannot save it for you before building a target. Some applications, such as Interface Builder
and BBEdit, communicate with Xcode and so can save your files before your project is built. Check the
application’s documentation to find out whether it can, too.

To always have Xcode use your preferred application to open files of a certain type, find the appropriate file
type in File Types preferences and choose Open With Finder from its Preferred Editor menu.

Note that you can set this preference only for file types that Xcode recognizes. To open files that Xcode
cannot handle, or to temporarily override the settings in the File Types preferences pane and open a file
using the Finder-specified application: In the Groups & Files list or detail view, choose Open With Finder from
the file’s shortcut menu.

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If you have the text editor pane of a window (such as the project window) open, selecting a file still loads
the file in the editor. But if you configure Xcode to use an external editor to edit the file, you cannot edit the
file within Xcode. That is, the file is read-only in the Xcode text editor.

Saving Files

Xcode indicates which files you’ve modified by highlighting their icons in gray in the Groups & Files list, the
detail view, and the File History pop-up menu. You can save your changes in a number of ways:

■ To save changes to the current file, choose File > Save.

■ To save a copy of a file, choose File > Save As. Xcode saves a copy of the file under the name you specify.
If the file is part of your project, Xcode also changes the file reference in your project to refer to the copy.
■ To make a backup of a file, hold the Option key and choose File > Save a Copy As. Xcode saves a copy
of the file under the name you specify, but does not modify the file reference in your project, if one
exists.
■ To save all open files, hold Option and choose File > Save All.

Xcode can also be configured to automatically save all changed files before beginning a build. To specify
whether files are saved automatically when you build a target:

1. Choose Xcode > Preferences and click Building.

2. Use the For Unsaved Files menu, to choose the behavior you want.

If you don’t have write permission for a file, Xcode warns you when you try to edit it. You can choose to edit
such files, but you can save your changes only if you have write permission for the containing folder. In this
case, you can choose whether Xcode changes the file’s permissions to make it writable.

To have Xcode change the file’s permissions, select the “Save files as writable” option in Text Editing
preferences. Otherwise, Xcode preserves the file’s current permissions.

Closing Files

Files in a project remain open until you explicitly close the file or close the project. To close the current file
in a text editor, choose File > Close File.

Deleting Files

To remove a file from a project and, optionally, to delete it from your file system, select the file in the Groups
& Files list or the detail view and choose Edit > Delete.

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Viewing File Information

You can view and edit settings for files, frameworks, and directories using the File Info window. To display
the File Info window, select the item to edit and choose File > Get Info.

Note: When dealing with items in static groups, you’re really manipulating file references. These references
point to files, in your file system. For more information on file references, see “Files in Xcode” in Xcode Project
Management Guide.

If you select more than one file, Xcode displays one File Info window that applies to all the selected files.
Attributes whose values are not the same for all selected files are dimmed. Changing an attribute’s value
applies that change to all selected files.

The File Info window for a file, folder, framework, or static group contains the following panes, shown in
Figure 3-3:

■ General. Lets you modify a number of main file attributes, such as filename, location, reference style,
and character encoding.
■ Targets. Lets you view and change which targets include the file.
■ Build. Lets you specify additional compiler flags for the file. The Build pane appears only when the file
being inspected is a source code file.
■ SCM. Lets you view SCM information for the file. This pane is available only for files under source control.
■ Comments. Lets you add notes, documentation, or other information about the file. See "Adding
Comments to Project Items" (page 34) for more information on adding comments.

44 Viewing File Information

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Figure 3-3 The File Info window

Here is what you can see and edit in the General pane of the File Info window:

■ Name field. Displays the file’s name. To rename the file, type the new name in this field.
■ Path field. Shows the location of the file; that is, it shows the path to the file. To change this location,
click the Choose button next to the path. You get a dialog that lets you choose a new path.
■ Path Type pop-up menu. Indicates the reference style used for the file. These reference styles are
described in "How Files Are Referenced" in Xcode Project Management Guide. To change the way the file
is referenced, choose a style from this menu.
■ File Type pop-up menu. Lets you explicitly set the file’s type, overriding the actual file type of the file.
How to change a file’s type is described in "Overriding a File’s Type" (page 47).
■ “Include in index” checkbox. Controls whether Xcode includes the file when it creates the project’s
symbolic index. See "Source Code Indexing" in Xcode Overview for more information.
■ File Encoding pop-up menu. Specifies the character set used to save and display the file. File encodings
are discussed further in "Choosing File Encodings" (page 46).

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■ Line Endings pop-up menu. Specifies the type of line ending used in the file. Line endings are discussed
in "Changing Line Endings" (page 47).
■ The next several options control tab and indent settings for the individual file. The Tab Width and Indent
Width fields control the number of spaces that Xcode inserts when it indents your code or when you
press the Tab key when you edit the file in the text editor. To change either of these values, type directly
in the field.
“Editor uses tabs” option. Specifies whether pressing the Tab key inserts spaces or a tab when you are
editing this file in the text editor. Controlling indentation in the editor is discussed further in "Tab and
Indent Layout Options" (page 58).
“Editor wraps lines” option. Specifies whether the text editor wraps lines that are too long to fit in the
window.
Reset to Text Editing Defaults button. Restores the line ending, file encoding, tab and indent settings
to the built-in defaults.
■ Make File Localizable and Add Localization buttons. Let you customize files for different regions.

Choosing File Encodings

The file encoding of a file defines the character set that Xcode uses to display and save a file. If you type a
character that isn’t in the file’s encoding, Xcode asks whether you want to change the encoding. Xcode uses
the default single-byte string encoding or Unicode if the file contains double-byte characters.

To change the file encoding for one or more files:

1. Select the files and open a File Info window.

2. In the General pane, choose the desired file encoding from the File Encoding pop-up menu.

Generally Unicode (UTF-8) is best for source files and Unicode (UTF-16) is best for .strings files.

When Xcode next saves the file, it uses the new file encoding.

To choose the default file encoding for new files, use the Default File Encoding pop-up menu in Text Editing
preferences.

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Note: GCC, the compiler used by Xcode for C-based languages (such as C, Objective-C, and C++), expects
its source files to contain only ASCII characters, with the exception that comments and strings can contain
any characters. Also, some encodings use escape sequences to handle non-ASCII characters, and those escape
sequences can cause unexpected results when GCC interprets them as ASCII characters. For example, some
characters in the Japanese (Shift JIS) encoding look like */ and will end your comment before you intended.
Unicode (UTF-8) avoids this confusion.

Changing Line Endings

UNIX, Windows, and Mac OS X use different characters to denote the end of a line in a text file. Xcode can
open text files that use any of these line endings. By default, it preserves line endings when it saves text files.
However, other utilities and text editors may require that a text file use specific line-ending characters. You
can change the type of line endings that Xcode uses for a single file, or you can change the default line
ending style that Xcode uses for new or existing files.

To change an individual file’s line endings, select the file in the project window and open its File Info window.
In the General pane of the info window, use the Line Endings pop-up menu to choose Unix Line Endings
(LF), Classic Mac Line Endings (CR), or Windows Line Endings (CRLF).

To choose the default line endings used for all files, display the Text Editing preferences pane, and choose
Unix (LF), Mac (CR), or Windows (CRLF) from the Line Encodings pop-up menus:

■ For new files. Lets you choose the default line encoding that Xcode uses for all new files.
■ For existing files. Specifies the type of line encoding that Xcode uses when saving existing files that
you have opened for editing in Xcode. To have Xcode preserve line endings for existing files, choose
Preserve from this menu; this is the default value for the menu.

Generally, you don’t need to worry about line endings. If you find that you must change line endings from
the defaults assigned by Xcode, keep these guidelines in mind when deciding which line endings to use:

■ Most Mac OS X development applications, including CodeWarrior and BBEdit, can handle files that use
UNIX, Mac OS, or Windows line endings.
■ Many UNIX command-line utilities, such as grep and awk, can handle only files with UNIX line endings.

Overriding a File’s Type

By default, Xcode uses the type stored for a file in the file system to determine how to handle that file. A file’s
type affects which text editor Xcode opens the file in (the internal editor or an external one), how the file is
processed when you build a target that includes the file, and how Xcode formats the file when syntax
formatting is turned on. You can change the way that Xcode handles a file by overriding the file’s type.

The File Type pop-up menu in the General pane of the File Info window lets you explicitly set the file’s type,
overriding the actual file type of the file. The File Type menu lists all the file types that Xcode is aware of; to
set a file’s type, choose it from this menu. Choosing Default For File discards any explicit file type set for the
file in Xcode and reverts to using the type stored for the file in the file system.

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For more information on how Xcode determines how to process files of a certain type, see "Build Rules" in
Xcode Build System Guide and "Adding Files to a Build Phase" in Xcode Build System Guide. For more information
on how Xcode chooses the editor to use for files of a certain type, see "Specifying How Files Are Opened" (page
39).

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 CHAPTER 4

The Text Editor

Xcode contains a full-featured text editor for editing your project’s text files. You have many options for
using this editor to view and modify the text files in your project; you can edit files in a dedicated editor
window or use the editor pane attached to most Xcode windows. You can also choose whether to have
multiple editor windows open at once or use a single editor window for all the text files that you open.

This chapter describes the Xcode text editor, shows how to open files in a standalone window or in an editor
pane, and how to control the appearance of the editor.

A Tour of the Text Editor

The Xcode text editor provides many ways to move between files and to find and navigate to information
in a file. The navigation bar of the editor provides a number of menus for navigating within and between
files.

You can view the text editor in two ways:

■ A text editor window: A window whose main purpose is to let you edit a file.
■ A text editor pane: Also known as an attached editor, these panes are part of other windows, such as
the project window, debugger window, or build results window.

In either case, the content looks the same and the same controls are available. When you open a file in the
text editor, you see something similar to Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1 The text editor

Gutter
Focus ribbon
Navigation bar

Content pane

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The Text Editor

Here’s what the text editor contains:

■ Gutter. The gutter displays file line numbers, as well as information about the location of breakpoints,
errors, or warnings in the file. See "Displaying the Gutter" (page 72) to learn more about the contents
of the gutter, as well as how to show and hide the gutter.
■ Focus ribbon. The focus ribbon allows you to navigate the scope of a code file and to fold and unfold
parts of a code file. To learn more about folding/unfolding code, see "Code Folding" (page 65).
■ Navigation bar. The bar along the top of the editor contains several menus and buttons that let you
quickly see, and jump to, locations within the current file and in other files open in the editor. "Navigation
Bar" (page 50) describes the contents of the navigation bar and how to use it to navigate source code
files.
■ Content pane. The content pane displays the contents of the file.

Note: Sometimes an editor pane may display the message “No Editor.” This means that there is no file
selected in the detail view or the Groups & Files list.

Navigation Bar
The navigation bar contains a number of controls that you can use to move between files you’ve viewed,
jump to symbols, and open related files. Figure 4-2 shows the navigation bar.

Figure 4-2 Text editor navigation bar

Class Hierarchy menu Included files menu

Go Back Breakpoints menu Counterpart button
Go Forward File history menu Function menu Bookmarks menu Lock button

Here is what the navigation bar contains:

■ Go Back/Go Forward. Move between and within open files in the editor. See "Navigating Code" (page
55) for details.
■ File History menu. Lists the files recently viewed in the current text editor. Choosing a file from this
menu displays that file in the editor, without having to repeatedly click the Next or Previous arrows.
■ Function menu. Shows the function and method definitions in the current file. When you choose a
definition from this menu, the editor scrolls to the location of that definition. For information on how
to configure the Function menu, see "The Function Menu" (page 51).
■ Bookmarks menu. Contains any bookmarked locations in the current file. When you choose a bookmark
from this menu, the editor scrolls to the location of the bookmark. See "Defining Bookmarks" (page 34)
to learn more about bookmarks in your project.
■ Breakpoints menu. Lists breakpoints in the current file. Choosing a breakpoint from this menu scrolls
the editor to the location at which the breakpoint is set. See Managing Program Execution to learn more
about breakpoints.
■ Class Hierarchy menu. Allows you to navigate the class hierarchy of an Objective-C class.

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■ Counterpart button. Opens the counterpart of the current file or jumps to the symbolic counterpart of
the currently selected symbol. See "Jumping to the Counterpart of a File or Symbol" (page 52) for more
information on the Counterpart button.
■ Included Files menu. Lists the files included by the current file, as well as the files that include the current
file. Choosing a file from this menu opens that file in the editor. This menu is described more in "Opening
Header Files and Other Related Files" (page 38).
■ Lock button. Indicates whether the current file is editable and allows you to change the locked status
of the file. (When clicked, Xcode attempts to change the file's permissions accordingly.)

The File History Menu

The File History menu lists the files that you have viewed in the current editor, with the current file at the
top of the menu. To go to any of these files, simply choose it from the list. The menu has a couple of commands:
Clear File History and History Capacity.

You can clear the File History menu by choosing Clear File History. This removes all but the current file in the
editor from the list. By default, Xcode places no limit on the number of files that it places in this menu. You
can limit the size of the File History menu with the History Capacity command.

The Function Menu

The Function menu lets you jump to many points in the current file, including any identifier it declares or
defines. You can also add items that aren’t definitions or declarations. In this menu, you can see:

■ Declarations and definitions for classes, functions, and methods

■ Type declarations
■ #define directives

■ #pragma marks

■ Comments containing:
❏ MARK:

❏ TODO:

❏ FIXME:

❏ !!!:

❏ ???:

To scroll to the location of any of these identifiers, choose it from the menu. Figure 4-3 shows the Function
menu.

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Figure 4-3 The Function menu

The contents of the Function menu are sorted in the order in which they appear in the file. Hold down the
Option key while using the Function menu to toggle the sort order of the items between alphabetical order
and the order in which they appear in the source file.

You can also change the default behavior for the Function menu in Code Sense preferences. To choose which
items appear in the Function menu and the order they appear in, use:

■ The “Show declarations” option to specify whether the menu shows declarations as well as definitions
■ The “Sort list alphabetically” option to specify whether the items are sorted alphabetically or in the order
they appear in the file

To add a marker to a source file and make that marker appear in the Function menu, use the #pragma mark
statement in your source code. For example, the following statement adds “PRINTING FUNCTIONS” to the
Function menu:

#pragma mark PRINTING FUNCTIONS

To add a separator to the Function menu use:

#pragma mark -

Supported languages: The Function menu works with C, Objective-C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, and Ruby.

Jumping to the Counterpart of a File or Symbol

Clicking the Counterpart button opens the related header or source file for the file currently open in the text
editor. For example, if the file currently open in the editor is MyFile.c, clicking this button opens MyFile.h,
and vice versa. When your project contains files with the same name, Xcode gives preference to files located
in the same folder as their counterparts. You can also open the current file’s related header or implementation
file by choosing View > Switch to Header/Source File.

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Option-clicking the Counterpart button displays the counterpart of the currently selected symbol—class,
method, function, and so on—opening the corresponding file and scrolling to the appropriate section within
it if necessary. If the selected symbol is a class, method, or function declaration, the editor scrolls to the
definition for that item. If a class, function, or method definition is currently selected, the editor scrolls to the
symbol’s declaration.

By default, Xcode opens the file or symbol counterpart in the current editor; however, you can have Xcode
open counterparts in a separate editor window. This makes it easy to view both a header and its
implementation file, or a symbol declaration and its definition, at once. To have Xcode open counterparts in
a separate window, go to General preferences, and deselect the “Open counterparts in same editor” option.

Using Text Editor Windows

If you prefer, you can use a dedicated window for editing source files. Regardless of your preference for
whether Xcode automatically opens the attached text editor in Xcode windows, you can always open a file
in a separate editor window by doing either of the following:

■ Double-click the file in the Groups & Files list or the detail view in the project window.
■ Choose ”Open in Separate Editor” from the file shortcut menu.

Figure 4-4 shows a text editor window.

Figure 4-4 The text editor in a standalone window

In addition to the basic editor interface, the standalone editor window also contains a toolbar and a status
bar. The status bar is similar to the status bar of other Xcode windows, described in "The Project Window
Status Bar" (page 19).

Like the toolbar in other Xcode windows, the toolbar in the text editor window provides easy access to
common tasks. In addition to the buttons for building, running, and debugging the current target, it also
contains the following buttons:

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■ Breakpoints menu. Adds breakpoints to the current file. The menu has preconfigured breakpoint actions.
When you choose one of these actions Xcode adds a breakpoint at the current location of the insertion
point and configures it with the specified action. See Managing Program Execution for more information.
■ Activate/Deactivate button. Toggles breakpoints on or off.
■ Project button. Jumps to the file in the project window. Clicking this button brings the project window
to the front.
■ Grouped/Ungrouped button. Controls whether opening a file, using any of the methods described
earlier in this section, opens an editor window for that file or opens the file in the current window. Clicking
the button toggles the state. If the label is Grouped, indicated by the icon of a single window,
double-clicking a file opens it in the current editor. If the label is Ungrouped, indicated by an icon of
multiple layered windows, each file opens in a separate editor window.

To preserve the state of any open text editor windows when you close a project, select the “Save window
state” option in General preferences.

Using Text Editor Panes

You can also edit your source files from within other Xcode windows, such as the project window and the
debugger window, as shown in Figure 4-5. To open a file in a window’s text editor pane, first make sure that
the editor is visible in the window. If the editor is not already visible, you can open it by clicking Editor in the
toolbar. This reveals the text editor pane of the project window. If the editor pane is at its maximum size,
clicking the Editor button returns the pane to its previous size. To adjust the size of the editor pane to a
different size, drag the separator to the size that you prefer. Another way to view a file in the editor pane is
to select the file and choose View > Zoom Editor In.

Selecting a file, an error or warning, a bookmark, a find result or a project symbol opens the associated file
in the editor pane as long as it is visible. You can also have Xcode automatically show the editor pane when
you select one of these items in the detail view. Select the “Automatically open/close attached editor” option
in General preferences.

Figure 4-5 The text editor pane in a project window

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Splitting Text Editors

Xcode allows you to simultaneously view multiple files or multiple sections of the same file without increasing
the number of open windows. It does this by splitting a text editor. Figure 4-6 shows an editor that has been
split to display two parts of the same file.

Figure 4-6 Splitting a text editor

Split
Close split

Note: You can split a text editor whether that editor appears in an editor window or an editor pane.

To split a text editor, make sure that the editor has focus and do one of the following:

■ To split the editor vertically click the Split button. The Split button—identical to the Split button in the
Groups & Files list, described in "Splitting the Groups & Files View" (page 15)—appears above the vertical
scrollbar of the editor window.
■ To split a code editor horizontally Option-click the Split button.

To close a split, click the Close Split button. You can resize the panes of a split editor by dragging the resize
control between them.

Navigating Code

Xcode provides seamless navigation throughout the source-code files you have opened in a text editor
window. The Go Back and Go Forward buttons in the navigation bar let you move between interesting
locations within a file, and switch between the files you have opened in that text editor window. In-file
navigation is limited to C-based source files, though.

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After opening a file and making changes throughout the file, you can jump back through the changed
locations by clicking the Go Back button. Navigating past the first visited location in the file causes the text
editor to switch to the file that was active before the current file opened. Conversely, you can jump forward
between opened files and interesting locations within files by clicking the Go Forward button.

Clicking the Go Back or Go Forward buttons and holding down the mouse button displays a lost of the
opened source files, including the interesting locations within those files.

When you want to jump directly to the previous or next file, Option-click the Go Back or Go Forward buttons,
respectively.

Text-editor source-navigation commands:

■ Move forward. Click Go Forward in the navigation bar or choose View > Go Forward.
■ Move backward. Click Go Back in the navigation bar or choose View > Go Back.
■ Next file. Option-click Go Forward in the navigation bar.
■ Previous file. Option-click Go Back in the navigation bar.

Laying Out Code

Xcode provides a number of layout options to help you keep your code well formed and readable. Syntax-aware
indenting helps you keep your code neat by automatically indenting code as you type. This section describes
options for indenting code and matching parentheses.

Indenting Code
The text editor supports syntax-aware indenting (automatic code indentation) to make it simple to author
neat and readable code. You can also choose to indent code manually.

This section shows how to configure syntax-aware indenting, how to manually format text in the text editor,
and how to control tab layout and automatic indentation.

Syntax-Aware Indenting

The syntax-aware indenting feature of the Xcode text editor gives you a number of ways to control how it
automatically lays out your code. When you use syntax-aware indenting, the editor automatically indents
your code as you type; pressing Return or Tab moves the insertion point to the appropriate level by examining
the syntax of the surrounding lines. You can control which characters cause the editor to indent a line, what
happens when you press the Tab key, and how the editor indents braces and comments.

To turn on syntax-aware indenting, select the “Syntax-aware indenting” option in Indentation preferences.
See "Indentation Preferences" (page 75) for details.

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Choosing What the Tab Key Does

When you use syntax-aware indenting, you usually press the Tab key to tell the editor to indent the text on
the current line. But when you’re at the end of the line, you may want to insert a tab character before, say,
you insert a comment. To choose the circumstances for which pressing the Tab key reindents a line, use the
“Tab indents” menu in Indentation preferences..

You can choose among always indenting, never indenting, or indenting only at the beginning of a line or
after a space. See "Indentation Preferences" (page 75) for more information.

To insert a tab character regardless of how “Tab indents” is set, press Option-Tab. Similarly, to perform
syntax-aware indenting regardless of this option’s setting, press Control-I.

Choosing How to Indent Braces

You can have the editor automatically indent braces to help you easily see the level of nesting in your code
and to keep your code readable. In addition, to help you keep braces balanced, you can have the editor
automatically insert a closing brace when you type an opening brace.

To set how much an opening brace is indented when it appears on a line by itself, use the “Indent solo “{”
by” text field in Indentation preferences.

When the value of the field is greater than 0, Xcode automatically indents opening braces to the level of the
previous line plus the specified number of characters.

To specify whether to insert a closing brace automatically when you type an opening brace, select the
“Automatically insert closing “}”” option.

Choosing Which Characters Reindent a Line

To set which characters cause the text editor to automatically indent a line whenever they’re typed, use the
options under “Automatically indented characters” in Indentation preferences. See "Indentation
Preferences" (page 75) for details.

Choosing How to Indent C++-Style Comments

You can choose how to indent C++–style (//) comments when they appear on lines by themselves.

Note: You cannot automatically indent C++–style comments that appear at the end of code lines.

To specify whether to indent // comments and whether to align consecutive // comments, use the options
for these comments in Indentation preferences.

Manual Indenting

If you choose not to use syntax-aware indenting, you must manually indent code you want indented. When
syntax-aware indenting is turned off, pressing Tab inserts a tab character and pressing Return inserts a carriage
return and moves the cursor to the same level as the previous line. You can also indent a block of text to the
left or right by selecting the text and choosing Edit > Format > Shift Left or Edit > Format > Shift Right.

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When syntax-aware indenting is turned off, the text editor may still indent newly added lines to the level of
the previous line when you press Return. You can turn this indenting off in Key Binding preferences. Click
Text Key Bindings and add the Return key to the keyboard shortcuts list of the Insert Newline action. See
"Keyboard Shortcuts" (page 103) for details.

Tab and Indent Layout Options

Whether you indent a line manually or rely on syntax-aware indenting, you can control the width of tabs and
indents, and you can specify whether the text editor inserts tab characters or spaces. You can specify default
values for all files you open in the text editor and customize these settings for individual files.

Changing the Indent and Tab Width

You can set how many spaces to indent when the editor automatically indents or when you press the Tab
key. To set the default indent or tab width for every file you open, use the “Tab width” and “Indent width”
text fields in Indentation preferences.

To override the default indent or tab width for one or more specific files, select the files in the Groups & Files
list and open the File Info window. In the General pane, change the Indent Width or Tab Width setting.

Note: If you change a file’s default indent or tab width, those settings are in effect for everyone who views
that file.

Using Spaces Instead of Tabs

To ensure that your code looks the same to other developers regardless of their tab layout settings, you can
have the editor insert a series of spaces instead of a tab character whenever it indents code or when you
press Tab.

To specify that the text editor use tabs instead of spaces, select the “Tab key inserts tab, not spaces” option
in Indentation preferences..

Important: When “Tab key inserts tab, not spaces” is selected, changing the width of tabs won’t affect code
you’ve already written.
These options are saved in your own Xcode preferences but not in the file itself. When other people edit the
file, their preferences for that file take effect.

You can also specify this setting on a per-file basis. To choose whether the editor uses tabs or spaces when
editing a certain file, select the file in the Groups & Files list, open the File Info window, and in the General
pane select “Editor uses tabs.”

Matching Parentheses, Braces, and Brackets

Xcode provides a number of ways to help you match pairs of delimiters (parentheses, braces, and brackets):

■ When you type a closing delimiter, Xcode causes its counterpart to blink.
■ When syntax-aware indenting is turned on, Xcode can automatically insert a closing brace each time
you type an opening brace, as described in "Choosing How to Indent Braces" (page 57).

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■ When you double-click any delimiter, Xcode selects the entire expression that it and its counterpart
enclose. You can also choose to select the delimiters themselves.
■ When you choose Edit > Format > Balance, Xcode selects the text surrounding the insertion point, up
to the nearest set of enclosing delimiters.

You can further control Xcode’s behavior when selecting text within a pair of enclosing braces or parentheses
using the options under Editing Options in Text Editing preferences. See "Text Editing Preferences" (page
73) for details.

Wrapping Lines
To keep all your code visible in the text editor, you can have it wrap lines when they reach the right edge of
the content pane. To turn on line wrapping for all files you open in the text editor, select the “Wrap lines in
editor” option in Indentation preferences.

Using the “Indent wrapped lines by” option, also in Indentation preferences, you can have the text editor
automatically indent wrapped lines, to visually distinguish them from other lines.

Note: When “Wrap lines in editor” is not selected, the text editor does not move text to the next line until
you insert a carriage return.

To wrap lines for an individual file in the current editor, choose View > Text > Wrap Lines.

Formatting Code

Syntax formatting (also known as syntax coloring) makes it easy to identify elements of your code by using
different fonts and colors to identify particular elements, such as keywords and comments. For example, you
can display comments in green and keywords in boldface.

Xcode supports syntax formatting for many programming languages; to see the languages that it supports,
choose View > Syntax Coloring.

The same menu allows you to toggle syntax formatting for the selected file:

■ None. Turns syntax formatting off for the file.

■ Default for file type. Turns syntax formatting on for the file, using the global syntax formatting settings
in the Fonts & Colors pane of Xcode preferences.

To specify whether Xcode applies syntax formatting to all files that you open, select the “Use syntax-based
formatting” option in Fonts & Colors preferences.

When syntax formatting is active, Xcode uses element categories to determine the formatting to apply to
particular elements in a file. An element category is a name that identifies a type of source-code element or
text-editor user interface. You can see a list of the categories and change the font and color for each in Fonts
& Colors preferences.

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Xcode provides several syntax formatting themes, which assign colors and fonts to all the element categories.
You can also create your own themes.

Using its knowledge of the syntax of a programming language, Xcode assigns keywords or textual constructs
in a file, such as numbers or strings (text within quotation marks) to an element category to determine how
it's formatted in the editor. In addition, you can tell Xcode to use a project’s Code Sense index to provide a
richer store of symbol information to assign code fragments to element categories. That is, instead of only
the current file, Xcode uses information about all the source files in the project to associate code fragments
to categories.

For further details about configuring syntax formatting, see "Fonts & Colors Preferences" (page 78).

Completing Code

When you write code, you often must type or copy and paste long identifier names and lists of arguments.
Code completion offers you a shortcut. As you type the beginning of an identifier or a keyword, code
completion suggests likely completions, based on the text you have already typed and the surrounding
context within the file.

Code completion is implemented using an index of the symbols defined in your project and its included files.
Xcode supports code completion for C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Java, and AppleScript. To learn
more about source-code indexing, see “Code Sense” in Xcode Project Management Guide.

This section describes how to use code completion and how to set code completion options.

Important: Code completion relies on your project’s source-code index. Code completion does not work
when indexing is turned off or incomplete.

To turn on code completion, use the Automatically Suggest menu in Code Sense preferences.

Code completion offers the best suggestion inline. You can also display the list of completions for the text
you’ve typed. The following sections describe these two modes of code completion.

Completing Code Inline

As you type, Xcode builds a list of the symbols that match the token (string containing no spaces) you’ve
entered; it further modifies the list by analyzing the token’s context within the file. When Xcode finds
completions, the text editor shows the most likely completion inline, as shown in Figure 4-7 (the following
descriptions are based on the Sketch example project).

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Figure 4-7 Inline code completion

In this case, the text typed is per. Xcode has built a list of possible completions and shown the completion
that it guesses is the most appropriate, performSelector:(SEL)aSelector. In addition, the form text is
highlighted because, in the list that Xcode built, all possible completions start with perform. Pressing Tab
accepts the highlighted portion of the completion. The gray-text part of the completion,
Selector:(SEL)aSelector in this case, can be changed with further typing.

In this example, most of the possible completions start with performS, but there is also one completion that
starts with performD. This is why even after typing perform, Xcode doesn’t fully suggest a completion that
starts with performSelector: You may mean to type the performDragOperation: method name.

With the cursor to the right of the perform token, typing S makes Xcode fully suggest the
performSelector:(SEL)aSelector completion (no gray text) because that symbol name represents an
indexed symbol that would be appropriate in the token’s context. Pressing Tab accepts that completion.

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Because the performSelector: method has one parameter, after accepting the completion, Xcode displays
a placeholder for the method’s parameter and selects it so that you can enter the parameter’s value. With
methods with multiple parameters, you can press Tab to move through their placeholders.

If you rather work with parameters as plain text instead of in their placeholder form, you can convert a
placeholder to text. To convert a placeholder to text, select the placeholder and press Return.

Before accepting a completion, you can choose the next completion in the completion list by choosing Edit
> Next Completion.

Inline-completion commands:
■ Accept completion. Press Tab or Return.
■ Next placeholder. Press Tab or choose Edit > Select Next Placeholder.
■ Placeholder to text. Select placeholder and press Return.
■ Completion list. Press Escape.

You can change the keyboard shortcuts associated with code completion commands in Key Bindings
preferences. Click Text Key Bindings and look for the actions that begin with “Code Sense” in the alphabetical
list:

■ Code Sense Complete List

■ Code Sense Next Completion
■ Code Sense Previous Completion
■ Code Sense Select Next Placeholder
■ Code Sense Select Previous Placeholder

For more information on keyboard shortcuts, see "Keyboard Shortcuts" (page 103).

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Completing Code Using the Completion List

At any time, you can open the completion list Xcode has built so far for the typed token by choosing Edit
> Completion List or pressing Escape.

Figure 4-8 shows the completion list. The button in the bottom-right corner of the list lets you specify the
sort order of the completion suggestions. You can sort completions alphabetically or by relevance.

Figure 4-8 Code completion list

You can choose the appropriate match from this list or continue typing to narrow the list further. To enter a
symbol from the completion list, select it and press Return.

Xcode lets you specify whether and how the text editor makes code completion suggestions and how much
of a symbol’s information the completion list displays. You make these choices in Code Sense preferences.
See "Code Sense Preferences" (page 77) for details.

Completion-list commands:
■ Accept completion. Press Return.
■ Dismiss completion list. Press Escape.

Scoping Code

The text editor provides two ways for you to focus on the part of the source file that interests you:

■ Code focus, which highlights scope levels

■ Code folding, which allows you to collapse portions of code

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This section shows how to survey a source file’s scope levels and how to hide areas of a file in which you’re
not interested.

Code Focus
Code focus highlights a source file’s scope levels using a grayscale. The code at the current scope, called the
focus center, is demarcated in the focus box, which uses a white background. The editor delineates subsequent
scopes in boxes using progressively darker backgrounds. Figure 4-9 shows the code focus interface.

Figure 4-9 Code-focus controls

Focus ribbon

Folded text

Focus box

Code focus is toggled on or off in Text Editing preferences.

To survey a source file’s scope levels, use the focus ribbon, which is located to the right of the editor gutter.
It also uses levels of gray to identify the scope level of the corresponding code lines. The focus box changes
as you move the pointer through the focus ribbon to show the focus center that corresponds to the pointer’s
position within the file.

Map of the code: If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel or scroll ball, you can ”fly over” your source file’s
scope levels by turning it up or down while the pointer remains in the same spot on the screen.

In addition to following the pointer in the focus ribbon, you can have the focus box follow the cursor’s
position in the content view by choosing View > Code Folding > Focus Follows Selection.

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Code Folding
When you’re trying to focus your attention on a specific aspect of your code, such as methods that deal with
a particular instance variable, other aspects (for example, other methods or comments about your code) can
get in the way. Code folding helps you zero in on the code you want to see by letting you hide the code
you don’t want to see.

In Figure 4-9 (page 64) the editor reveals only one of the methods of the SKTDocument.m file. The other
methods are folded (hidden) away from view.

These are the code folding actions you can perform:

■ Fold the focus center. To fold the focus center, click the area in the focus ribbon that corresponds to
the focus box.
■ Unfold code. To unfold code, click either the corresponding triangle in the focus ribbon or the icon
containing the ellipsis (…) in the content pane.

You can perform other code folding actions using the Code Folding submenu of the View menu.

Code folding supported languages: C, Objective-C, C++, and XML.

Editing Symbol Names

As you modify existing code or use code templates, you may want to change the name of function or method
parameters to produce self-documenting code, for instance. You may also want to highlight all the places a
symbol appears to see how extensively it’s used within a code block. The Edit All in Scope command in the
Edit menu facilitates these tasks. This command lets you select a symbol in a code block and highlight or
change all occurrences of the symbol within the code block simultaneously.

For example, take this code listing:

- (void)setSearchKey:(NSString *) value {
if (_searchKey != value) {
[_searchKey release];
if (value == nil) value = @"";
_searchKey = [value copy];
[self createSearchPredicate];
}
}

Instead of value you may want to use searchKey to identify the method’s argument. To do that, you select
an occurrence of value anywhere within the method and choose Edit > Edit All in Scope.

You can then change value to searchKey once. Xcode replaces all occurrences of value with searchKey
within the method while you type the new name, as shown in Figure 4-10.

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Figure 4-10 Editing the name of a symbol

To exit editing in a scope, click anywhere in the file, outside highlighted text.

To cycle among the symbol occurrences within the code block, choose Edit > Select Next Placeholder (hold
the Shift key to select the previous occurrence).

To learn how to customize the behavior of the Edit All in Scope command, see "Code Sense Preferences" (page
77).

Note: The Edit All in Scope command is available only with these languages: C, C++, Objective-C, and
Objective-C++.

Repeating Code

Using code completion to automatically complete symbol names saves you a lot of typing. In the course of
writing source code, however, you still spend a lot of time typing the same basic code constructs—such as
alloc and init methods in Objective-C programs—over and over again. To help you with this, Xcode
includes a set of text macros. Text macros let you insert common constructs and blocks of code with a menu
item or keystroke, instead of typing them in directly.

You can insert a text macro in either of these ways:

■ Choose Edit > Insert Text Macro.

Then choose a text macro from one of the language-specific submenus. Xcode provides built-in text
macros for common C, C++, Objective-C, Java, and HTML constructs.
■ Type the completion prefix for the text macro ("Text Macros with Completion Prefixes" (page 68)) and
use code completion (press Escape) to insert the remaining text, just as you would to complete a symbol
name. Most of the text macros provided by Xcode have a completion prefix, a string that Code Sense
uses to identify the text macro. When you type this string, Xcode includes the text macro in the completion
list; you can select it from this list or cycle through the appropriate completions, as described in
"Completing Code" (page 60).

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The inserted text includes placeholders for arguments, variables, and other program-specific information.
For example, choosing Insert Text Macro > C > If Block inserts the following text at the current insertion point
in the active editor:

Replace the placeholders expression and statements with your code. You can cycle through the
placeholders in a text macro in the same way you can cycle through function arguments with code completion.
A text macro can also define one placeholder to be replaced with the current selection, if any. When you
select text in the active editor and insert a text macro, Xcode substitutes the selected text for this placeholder.
For the If Block text macro described above, Xcode substitutes the selected text for the statement placeholder.
For example, if the current selection in the text editor is CFRelease(someString);, inserting the If Block
text macro gives you the following:

If there is no selection, Xcode simply inserts the statements placeholder, as in the previous example.

Some text macros have several variants. For example, the text macro for inserting an HTML heading has
variants for the different levels of headings. For text macros that have multiple variants, repeatedly choosing
that text macro from the Insert Text Macro menus cycles through the different versions of that macro. For
example, choosing Insert Text Macro > HTML > Heading a single time produces:

Choosing it again modifies the text to:

To create your own text macros, you have to create a language specification for the language to which you
want to apply the macro. Then, place the language specification in:

~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Specifications

For examples of language specifications, see:

<Xcode>/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/PlugIns/TextMacros.xctxtmacro

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Text Macros with Completion Prefixes

The following tables list the built-in text macros with completion prefixes for C, Objective-C, and C++.

Table 4-1 C text macros with completion prefixes

Text macro name Completion prefix

If Block if

If / Else Block ifelse

Else If Block elseif

For Loop for

For i Loop fori

While Loop while

Do While Loop do

Switch Block switch

Case Block case

Else Block else

Enum Definition enum

Struct Definition struct

Union Definition union

Type Definition typedef

Printf() Call printf

#Pragma Mark pm

Pragma Mark pragma

#Import Statement pim

#Import Statement (System) pims

#Import Statement (Framework) pimf

#Include Statement pin

#Include Statement (System) pins

#If Block pif

#Ifdef Block pifd

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Text macro name Completion prefix

#if / Else Block pife

#Ifdef / Else Block pifde

#if 0 Block pifz

Copyright Comment copyright

Comment Selection comment

Separator Comment cseparator

Table 4-2 Objective-C text macros with completion prefixes

Text macro name Completion prefix

Try / Catch Block @try

Catch Block @catch

Finally Block @finally

NSLog() Call log

Alloc / Init Call a

Array Declaration aa

Mutable Array Declaration ma

Array For Loop fora

Array Foreach Loop fore

init Definition init

dealloc Definition dealloc

observeValueForKeyPath: Definition observeValueForKeyPath

observeValueForKeyPath: Declaration observeValueForKeyPath

bind: Definition bind

bind: Declaration bind

@interface Definition @interface

@implementation Definition @implementation

@protocol Definition @protocol

NSString nss

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Text macro name Completion prefix

NSMutableString nsms

NSArray nsa

NSMutableArray nsma

NSDictionary nsd

NSMutableDictionary nsmd

Table 4-3 C++ text macros with completion prefixes

Text macro name Completion prefix

#Ifdef Block pifdcpp

#Ifdef/Else Block pifdecpp

Static Cast static_cast

Dynamic Cast dynamic_cast

Reinterpret Cast reinterpret_cast

Try / Catch Block try

Catch Block catch

Cout Statement cout

Cout Message coutm

Namespace Definition namespace

Class Definition class

Extern \"C\" Statement extern

Extern \"C\" Block externb

Viewing Project Messages in the Text Editor

To help keep your attention on as few windows as possible, Xcode can display some information generated
as you work on a project in the text editor. The editor displays this information through message bubbles.
Message bubbles display project messages in a concise way in the code line from which they are generated
(in the case of build messages) or at which they are placed (in the case of breakpoints). You can view and
dismiss build messages and modify breakpoints without taking your focus away from the file you’re editing
in the text editor.

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Figure 4-11 shows a build message bubble.

Figure 4-11 Build message bubbles

To show or hide message bubbles in the text editor, use the Message Bubbles submenu of the View menu.

The Message Bubbles submenu also allows you to display and hide message bubbles as well as specify the
kind of messages in which you’re interested.

Executing Shell Commands in Selection

Xcode provides a keyboard shortcut for executing any shell command that appears in a text editor window.
To use this feature, select the command text and press Control-R. The results appear below the command
in the text editor window, automatically scrolling if necessary to show the output.

Xcode creates a shell each time you execute a command, so there is no shared context between different
executions. For example, if you execute a command that changes the directory, the next command you
execute does not execute in that directory. To overcome this, you can select two commands and press
Control-R.

One way to take advantage of this feature is to keep a file of commonly used commands and execute them
as needed. Or you might use an empty text file as a scratch area to type and execute commands.

You can also add custom menu items to execute frequently used shell scripts. Any scripts you execute can
take advantage of many special script variables and built-in scripts defined by Xcode. For more information,
see "User Scripts" (page 107).

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Customizing the Editor

Xcode gives you a great deal of flexibility to customize the appearance of the editor. You can change the
fonts and colors used to display text in the editor to suit your own preferences. You can also control the
amount of information that Xcode displays about file locations and contents. This section describes how to
change the default font and text editing colors for the text editor, and how to use the gutter, page guide,
and file history menu to locate information in a file.

Displaying a Page Guide

To help keep code lines no longer than a specified length, you can have Xcode display a guide line in the
editor at that column position in the text view. You activate the guide line in Text Editing preferences. Select
“Show page guide” option. Enter the location, in number of characters, at which you want the guide line
displayed in the “Display at column” field. Xcode displays a gray line in the right margin of the text editor,
at the specified column.

Xcode does not wrap your code lines when they reach the guide line. The line only serves as a visual cue.

Displaying the Gutter

The gutter that appears on the left side of the content pane in the editor helps you quickly locate items in
a file. The gutter can display:

■ Line numbers for the current file. Line numbers make it easy to find a location in a file. To show line
numbers, select the “Show line numbers” option in Text Editing preferences.
■ Errors and warnings. To help you locate and fix problems in your code, Xcode displays error and warning
icons next to the line at which an error or warning occurred. Clicking the icon or hovering the pointer
over the icon displays the error or warning message.
■ Breakpoints. You can use the gutter to set, remove, and otherwise control the breakpoints in a file.
Xcode indicates the location of a breakpoint by displaying an arrow next to the line at which the
breakpoint is set. For more information on using breakpoints, see “Using Breakpoints” in Xcode Debugging
Guide.

To show or hide the gutter in the text editor, use the “Show gutter” option in Text Editing preferences.

Viewing Column and Line Positions

The File History menu in the navigation bar not only lets you move between currently open files, it also shows
your current location in the file. The File History menu shows the name of the current file and the line number
of the line containing the insertion point. You can also have the File History menu display the column position
of the insertion point. Figure 4-12 shows the location of the current insertion point in the File History menu.

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Figure 4-12 Line numbers and column positions in the File History menu

Filename Line number

Column position

To set whether the text editor displays the column position of the insertion point, use the “Show column
position” option in Text Editing preferences.

Text Editing Preferences

The Text Editing pane of Xcode preferences contains options that control the appearance and behavior of
the text editor. Figure 4-13 shows Text Editing preferences.

Figure 4-13 Text Editing preferences pane

Here is what the pane contains:

■ Display Options. These options control the appearance of the text editor, whether it appears as a separate
window or as a pane attached to another Xcode window. See "Customizing the Editor" (page 72) to
learn more about changing the appearance of Xcode’s editor. The options are:

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❏ Show gutter. Specifies when Xcode displays the gutter in the editor. The gutter shows information
about the current file such as the location of breakpoints, line numbers, and the location of errors
or warnings. If this option is selected, Xcode always shows the gutter in all open editors; otherwise,
it shows the gutter only when debugging. See "Displaying the Gutter" (page 72) for more information.
❏ Show line numbers. Specifies whether Xcode shows a file’s line numbers in the editor gutter. If this
option is selected, Xcode shows line numbers for a file whenever the editor gutter is visible. See
"Displaying the Gutter" (page 72) for more information
❏ Show column position. Specifies whether Xcode shows the current position of the cursor in the
Function menu of the editor. If this option is selected, Xcode shows the character position of the
insertion point along the current line.
❏ Show code folding ribbon. Specifies whether the text editor shows the folding ribbon used to view
a source file’s scope levels and to perform code folding operations. See "Scoping Code" (page 63)
for more information.
Code focus. Specifies whether code focus is active. See "Code Focus" (page 64) for details.
❏ Show page guide. Specifies whether Xcode displays the page guide in the editor. If this option is
selected, Xcode displays a gray guide line in the editor to show you the right margin of the editor;
to the right of this margin, Xcode colors the background of the editor light gray. This is just a guide,
and does not actually affect the margin width in the editor. See "Displaying a Page Guide" (page
72) for more information.
Display at column. Controls the column position at which Xcode displays the page guide. This
position is specified in number of characters. To change the position at which the page guide is
shown, enter a new number in the field. See "Displaying a Page Guide" (page 72) for more
information.

■ Editing Options. These options control Xcode’s selection behavior for source code. The options are:
❏ Select to matching brace. Specifies whether Xcode automatically selects text contained in braces
when you double-click the brace. If this option is selected, double-clicking a brace, bracket, or
parenthesis in a source code file automatically selects the text up to, and including, the matching
brace. See "Matching Parentheses, Braces, and Brackets" (page 58).
❏ Omit braces in selection. Specifies whether Xcode includes the braces themselves in text selected
by double-clicking a brace, bracket, or parenthesis. If this option is selected, double-clicking a brace,
bracket, or parenthesis selects the text between the braces, but not the braces themselves. See
"Matching Parentheses, Braces, and Brackets" (page 58) for more information.

■ Save Options. These options let you specify how Xcode stores files that you edit in the text editor.
❏ Save files as writable. Specifies the permissions that Xcode uses for files that it saves. If this option
is selected, Xcode adds write permission to files that you edit and save in Xcode. Otherwise, Xcode
preserves permissions for files as they are on disk. Files that you create in Xcode already have write
permission.
❏ Line Encodings. Controls the default line endings used for files in Xcode. You can use Unix, Windows,
or Mac line endings for files that you open and edit in the text editor; the type of line endings used
for a file can affect which file editors and other tools can interpret the file. See "Changing Line
Endings" (page 47) for more information on line endings. The menus are:
❏ For new files. Specifies the type of line endings used for files that Xcode creates. You can choose
Unix, Mac, or Windows line endings. The default value for this setting is Unix.

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❏ For existing files. Specifies the type of line endings used for preexisting files that you open and
edit in Xcode. If you choose Unix, Mac, or Windows from this menu, Xcode saves all files that
you open and edit in Xcode with line endings of this type, changing them the next time it saves
the file, if necessary. If you choose Preserve from this menu, Xcode uses whatever type of line
endings the file already has.

❏ Default File Encoding. Specifies the default file encoding that Xcode uses for new files that you
create in Xcode. You can choose any of the file encoding supported by your Mac OS X system from
this menu. See "Choosing File Encodings" (page 46) for more information.

Indentation Preferences
The Indentation pane of Xcode preferences controls formatting options for files in the text editor. Figure
4-14 shows the Indentation preferences pane.

Figure 4-14 Indentation preferences pane

Here is what the pane contains:

■ Tabs. These options specify how the text editor inserts space into files while editing (see "Tab and Indent
Layout Options" (page 58) for more information):
❏ Tab key inserts tab, not spaces. Specifies whether Xcode inserts tab characters when you press the
Tab key in the editor. If this option is selected, pressing the Tab key inserts a Tab character. Otherwise,
Xcode inserts space characters.

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❏ Tab width. Specifies the default width, in number of characters, used to display tabs in the editor.
To change the width of a tab, type a number in the text field. You can override this setting for
individual files, as described in "Tab and Indent Layout Options" (page 58).
❏ Indent width. Specifies the default width, in number of characters, used to indent lines in the editor.
To change the indentation width, type a number in the text field. You can override this setting for
individual files, as described in "Tab and Indent Layout Options" (page 58).

■ Line Wrapping. These options specify how the text editor wraps lines in files displayed in the editor.
These options affect how the file is displayed onscreen, not line breaks or other information stored with
the file. See "Wrapping Lines" (page 59) for more information. The options are:
❏ Wrap lines in editor. Specifies whether the editor wraps lines. If this option is selected, the editor
wraps text to the next line when it reaches the outer edge of the text editing area onscreen.
Otherwise, Xcode moves text to the next line only when a carriage return or new line characters is
inserted.
❏ Indent wrapped lines by. Specifies how the editor indents text that it wraps to the next line. If this
number is greater than 0, the editor indents wrapped text by the specified number of characters,
as a visual indication that the text has been wrapped (as opposed to being moved to the next line
by the insertion of a carriage return or new line character). To change the amount by which lines
are indented, type a new number in the field.

■ Syntax-Aware Indenting. This option, and the options below it, control automatic formatting for source
code in the text editor. If this option is selected, Xcode assists you in writing source code by automatically
inserting formatting information appropriate for the current context. See "Indenting Code" (page 56)
to learn more. The options are:
❏ Tab indents. Specifies when pressing Tab in the editor inserts an indentation. You can choose the
following:
In leading white space: Pressing Tab inserts an indentation only at the beginning of a line or
following a space.
Never: Pressing Tab never causes an indentation.
Always: Pressing Tab always causes an indentation.

❏ Indent solo “{“ by. Controls the amount by which a left brace character ({) on a line by itself is
indented. If this number is greater than 0, Xcode automatically indents a left brace that appears on
a line by itself (that is, a left brace that is preceded by a newline or carriage return) by the specified
number of characters. The default value of this field is 0.
❏ Automatically insert closing “}”. Controls whether Xcode automatically inserts a matching right
brace when you type an opening brace. If this option is selected, typing an opening brace causes
Xcode to insert a matching closing brace.
❏ Automatically indented characters. Controls which characters trigger Xcode to automatically cause
an indentation. When any of the following options is selected, typing that character in an editor
causes Xcode to indent the current line or the following line.
❏ Indent // comments. Controls whether Xcode automatically indents C++-style comments. If this
option is selected, Xcode automatically indents comments beginning with //.
❏ Align consecutive //comments. Controls whether Xcode automatically indents consecutive C++-style
comments to the same level.

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Code Sense Preferences

The Code Sense pane of Xcode preferences contains options for controlling symbol indexing, the text editor’s
Function menu, and its code completion interface. Figure 4-15 shows the Code Sense pane. For more
information about Code Sense, see “Code Sense” in Xcode Project Management Guide.

Figure 4-15 Code Sense preferences pane

Here’s what the pane contains:

■ Indexing.
❏ Enable for all projects: Specifies whether symbol indexing is active for the projects you open.
When inactive, features that rely on this index (such as the Project Symbols smart group, refactoring,
and code completion) do not work. For more information about symbol indexing, see “Code Sense”
in Xcode Project Management Guide.

■ Editor Function Pop-up. This area contains options for configuring the text editor Function menu ("The
Function Menu" (page 51)).
❏ Show declarations. Specifies whether the Function menu shows function and method declarations
(in addition to definitions).
❏ Sort list alphabetically. Specifies whether the contents of the Function menu are sorted
alphabetically.
When unselected, the Function menu shows items in the order they appear in the file.

■ Code Completion. This area contains options for configuring code completion. For more information
about code completion, see "Completing Code" (page 60). (Your code completion settings apply to all
projects that you open.)

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❏ Show arguments in pop-up list. Specifies whether Xcode displays arguments for functions and
methods in the completion list. When this option is selected, Xcode displays the return type and
arguments for functions and methods in the list of completion suggestions. Otherwise, Xcode shows
only the symbol name.
❏ Insert argument placeholders for completions. Specifies whether Xcode inserts the arguments to
a function or method when you accept a completion suggestion. When selected, inserting a function
or method using code completion also inserts placeholders for arguments. Otherwise, Xcode inserts
only the symbol name.
❏ Automatically Suggest. Specifies whether and when Xcode shows completion suggestions. You
can choose between immediate and delayed suggestions.
❏ Suggestion delay. The number of seconds the text editor waits before showing its best completion
suggestion when using delayed completion suggestions.

■ Edit All in Scope. This area contains options for configuring Edit All in Scope behavior (see "Editing
Symbol Names" (page 65) for details about this feature).
❏ Automatically Highlight: Specifies whether and when Xcode highlights the occurrences of a symbol
whose name can be edited using Edit All in Scope. You can choose between immediate and delayed
suggestions.
❏ Highlight delay. The number of seconds the text editor waits before highlighting symbol occurrences
when using delayed highlighting.

Fonts & Colors Preferences

The Fonts & Colors pane of Xcode preferences (Figure 4-16) is where you configure syntax formatting, which
identifies elements of the source files you edit in the text editor (see "Formatting Code" (page 59) for details).

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Figure 4-16 Fonts & Colors preferences pane

Here is what the pane contains:

■ Color Theme: Lists of syntax formatting themes. Each theme applies a set of fonts and colors to all the
syntax formatting element categories Xcode supports.
■ Duplicate: Duplicates the current syntax formatting theme.
■ Delete: Deletes the current syntax formatting theme.
■ Category list: List of the syntax formatting element categories.
To change the font or color for a category, double-click the font or color you want to change to display
the Fonts window or the Colors window.
You can select more than one category to modify the font and color for a set of categories at the same
time.

Note: The Documentation Comments and Documentation Keywords categories apply to HeaderDoc
and JavaDoc comments, and their @-based keywords, respectively.

■ Use syntax-based formatting: Activates syntax formatting.

■ Color indexed symbols: Specifies whether to use the project’s Code Sense index to assign symbols in
source files to element categories. When turned off, the text editor uses only the file’s language to assign
symbols and text to categories.
■ Use colors when printing: Preserves syntax formatting when you print source files from Xcode.

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■ Copy colors and fonts: Places syntax formatting on the Clipboard when you copy text from the text
editor.

Note: Before you can customize the formatting of text categories, you must create a custom color theme
by duplicating one of the predefined themes.

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Refactoring Code

As programmers develop and maintain a software product, despite their best efforts, the changes they make
may degrade the quality of the product’s source code. Good-quality source code is easy to understand and
allows programmers to get up to date on a project in a short time. In such a project, for example, classes
have well-defined responsibilities; they do few things and do them well, Bad-quality source code is hard to
understand. The classes in such a project may have several areas of responsibility, making it hard to decide
where to add code to implement a new feature.

Projects with good-quality source code tend to lose their quality as they are changed. For example, fixing a
set of problems in a product in time to meet a deadline may require making hastily conceived changes that
may make the product’s source code harder to understand for people not familiar with the product. New
team members, and even the developers who made changes to the source code in the past, may have trouble
understanding that same source code as a whole or its individual components at a later date because the
purpose of classes and methods is not obvious or clear.

To address this problem, developers use a quality-improvement process called “refactoring.” In short,
refactoring makes code easier to understand and maintain without changing the behavior of the product.

This chapter shows how to perform refactoring operations using Xcode. It does not teach you refactoring.

To learn about refactoring, you should consult the books that cover this topic in depth. One such book is
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, by Martin Fowler. This book provides in-depth discussions
about the refactoring process and describes refactorings that solve common problems in source code that
make it hard to understand

Refactoring Overview

Refactoring allows you to improve the readability of a product’s source code while retaining its functionality
and behavior. The refactoring operations that modify source code are called refactorings or transformations.

Programmers perform refactoring operations all the time, without thinking about it. Every time you rename
a variable so that it reflects its purpose clearly (for example, changing i to item_index in loop), you are
refactoring code. However, more intricate refactoring operations may require many more steps, such as
moving the implementation of a feature from a superclass to the subclass that is actually responsible for that
aspect of the product.

These changes, while making it easier for programmers to understand a product’s source code, do no change
the functionality or behavior of the code. But they make it easier to make functional improvements or to add
features because programmers spend less time determining where to make the necessary changes. They
can hit the ground running, so to speak.

In Xcode 2, programmers use Search and Replace, and Copy and Paste commands to carry out such refactoring
operations. Performing a single operation with these tools requires careful planning. You must:

1. Identify all the files that need to be modified

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2. Delineate the changes needed on each file

3. Make the changes

4. Make sure the changes don’t affect the behavior of the product

Xcode performs the mundane, low-level refactoring steps for you, allowing you to focus on the high-level
implications of a refactoring operation, such as whether it actually helps to make the code easier to understand.

The refactoring transformations Xcode performs work in C and Objective-C source code, and Cocoa-based
projects, which may use key-value coding (KVC), Core Data model files, nib files, and so on. Therefore, in
addition to source code files, Xcode can transform nib files, key-value methods, and Core Data properties.

A refactoring is a change in source code. As such, you must ensure that the modified code works as expected
before and after a transformation. Using snapshots, Xcode lets you revert one or more refactorings. (A
snapshot is a copy of your entire project saved on your file system, so that you can undo changes across
several files in a project.) This capability allows you to experiment freely with refactorings; you can make a
refactoring and determine whether it really improves the readability of the code. If it doesn’t, you can back-out
the changes and try another approach.

As part of your refactoring workflow, you should develop unit tests for code you plan to refactor. Unit tests
provide a way to ensure that code behaves as it was designed to behave. Running these tests before and
after a refactoring lets you verify that the transformation doesn’t change the behavior of the modified code.

The following sections show how you can use Xcode to perform some of the refactorings described in Fowler’s
book and other Xcode-specific transformations.

Refactoring Workflow

Figure 5-1 illustrates the refactoring workflow in Xcode.

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Figure 5-1 Xcode refactoring workflow

Start
transmission

Select code
to refactor

Choose a Specify Preview the

transformation transformation transformation
options

Solve
Transformation Yes
errors/warnings? transformation
errors/warnings

No

Apply the
Compile
transformation

Compilation Yes Solve compilation

errors/warnings? errors/warnings

No

Run unit
tests

Solve unit test

Unit test Yes
errors/warnings? errors/warnings

No

End of transmission

These are the steps of a refactoring:

1. Select the code to transform, which identifies the transformation item.

The selected code can be located in any source file that’s part of the current project. The selected
codelines, including code fragments, always identify only one transformation item. The transformation
item is either the name of a symbol or a code fragment:

■ Symbol name. The transformation affects the header and implementation files that declare and
define the item, and other files that directly access the item, including nib and Core Data–model
files.
■ Code fragment. The transformation affects the scope containing the codelines (within a single file).

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2. Choose a transformation.

For transformations that operate on a single transformation item, choose Edit > Refactor.

and choose a transformation from the transformation pop-up menu in the Refactoring window.

Note: There are additional transformations available, such as Convert to Objective-C 2.0, which you
execute by choosing them from the Edit menu.

3. Define the transformation.

You define the transformation in the Refactoring window, which contains:

■ The transformation menu

■ Transformation specifiers (vary according to the transformation)
■ Transformation options (vary according to the transformation)
■ Transformation editor pane

4. Preview/modify the transformation.

In the transformation editor you can choose which changes to include in the transformation. Xcode
selects all changes it deems necessary for the transformation.

5. Apply the transformation.

To ensure that you can revert the transformation if it doesn’t prove beneficial, make sure the Snapshot
option is selected before clicking Apply.

6. Compile the source code.

Some transformations require that you perform additional work outside the transformation editor to
complete them. You can use compilation errors and warning to determine the fixes you need to make.

7. Test the code.

If you created unit tests for the code involved in the transformation, run them to ensure the transformed
code behaves as expected.

If there are problems, you can revert the transformation in the Snapshots window (if the Snapshot option
was selected when you applied the transformation).

Refactoring Transformations

Xcode performs transformation operations (refactorings) within the current project; it doesn’t perform
transformations across project references.

The following sections describe each of the refactorings Xcode helps you perform.

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Rename
The Rename transformation renames the transformation item throughout the project files.

Note: This transformation can rename items other than methods, such as functions, structures, structure
fields, and so on.

This transformation contains the following specifiers and options:

■ New Name. The new name for the transformation item.

■ Rename related KVC/Core Data Members. Specifies whether to change related KVC methods and Core
Data properties.
■ Rename Related Files. Available when the transformation item is declared in a header file named after
the transformation item, and defined in the corresponding implementation file.

The project elements this transformation modifies include:

■ The transformation item’s declaration/definition

■ Related KVC methods and Core Data properties, when indicated
■ The names of the header and implementation files that define the item and the corresponding
import/include statements in files that use the item, when indicated
■ Code that directly references the transformation item

Listing 5-1 and Listing 5-2 show an example of a rename transformation.

Listing 5-1 Renaming an index variable in a for loop (before)

- (int) myMethod {
int j = 1;
int i;
i = 5;
if (j == 1) {
int i;
for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
printf("Item index: %i\n", i);
...
}
}
return i;
}

Listing 5-2 Renaming an index variable in a for loop (after)

- (int) myMethod {
int j = 1;
int i;
i = 5;
if (j == 1) {
int item_index;
for (item_index = 0; item_index < 10; item_index++) {
printf("Item index: %i\n", item_index);

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...
}
}
return i;
}

Extract
The Extract transformation creates a function or method with the selected code as its body.

Xcode analyzes the context of the selected code and the variables it uses to determine the generated routine’s
parameters and return value.

This transformation contains the following specifiers:

■ Extracted Routine Name. The name of the function or method, including parameter names and types
and return-value type, which you can customize according to your preferences.
■ Extract To. The type of routine to which the selected code is to be extracted: a method or a function.

Note: When extracting code from a method into a function, this transformation generates parameters for
all the implicit data the code uses that would otherwise be inaccessible to a function.

Encapsulate
The Encapsulate transformation creates accessors for the transformation item, reduces its visibility, and
changes code that directly accesses the item to use the accessors instead.

Note: This transformation can operate on instance variables, too.

This transformation contains the following specifiers:

■ Getter. The method to use to get the value of the transformation item.
■ Setter. The method to use to set the value of the transformation item.

Create Superclass
The Create Superclass transformation creates a superclass for the selected class.

This transformation contains the following specifiers:

■ Superclass Name. The name of the new superclass for the selected class.
■ Declaration and Definition Location. You can choose between placing the new class’s declaration and
definition in:
❏ The the same header and implementation files where the selected class is declared/defined

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❏ New header and implementation files

To complete the transformation, you may need to correct the import/include statements of the source files
that declare/define the selected class and the new header/implementation files.

Move Up
The Move Up transformation moves the declaration and definition of the transformation item to the
superclass of the class that declares and defines the item.

This transformation contains the following option:

■ Move Up Related Methods. Specifies whether to move methods that directly access the transformation
item—and are declared/defined in the class that defines the item—to the superclass, too.

Move Down
The Move Down transformation moves the declaration and definition of the transformation item to one or
more of the subclasses of the class that declares/defines the item.

This transformation contains the following specifier:

■ Subclasses to Move the Item To. List of classes to which the transformation item is moved.

Note: This refactoring removes the transformation item’s declaration/definition from the class that
declares/defines it.

Modernize Loop
The Modernize Loop transformation modifies the selected loop to use the less verbose and more efficient
Objective-C 2.0 for loop.

This transformation operates only on a loop that meets the following requirements:

■ The loop iterates over all the elements of a collection: an NSArray or NSSet object.
■ The loop accesses each item in the collection in sequential order, starting at the first item.
■ Each of the loop’s iterations processes only one item of the collection at a time; it doesn’t access any
preceding or succeeding items.

These are additional restrictions on for loops:

■ The loop iterates over the elements of an NSArray object.

■ The loop uses a variable as the index into the collection, and this variable goes from 0 to [<collection>
count] - 1.

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■ The loop gets the current element with [<collection> objectAtIndex:<index>] and, either saves
it once into an element variable that’s accessed in the rest of the loop’s body, or uses this expression to
retrieve the current element throughout the loop’s body.

These are additional restrictions on while loops:

■ The loop uses an NSEnumerator object to iterate over the collection.

■ The loop gets the current element with [<enumerator> nextObject] and exits when the current
element is nil.
■ The loop does not change the loop control variables.
■ The loop’s containing code does not access the loop’s control variables.

Listing 5-3 and Listing 5-4 show a Modernize Loop transformation on a for loop.

Listing 5-3 Modernizing a for loop (before)

{ NSArray *array = ...;
NSObject *object = ...;
int index;
int array_count = [array count];
for (index = 0; index < array_count; index++) {
[object someMethod:[array objectAtIndex:index]];
NSLog(@"%@, [array, objectAtIndex:index]);
}
}

Listing 5-4 Modernizing a for loop (after)

{ NSArray *array = ...;
NSObject *object = ...;
for (foo in array) {
[object someMethod:foo];
NSLog(@"%@, foo]);
}
}

Listing 5-5 and Listing 5-6 show a Modernize Loop transformation on a while loop.

Listing 5-5 Modernizing a while loop (before)

{ NSSet *set = ...;
NSEnumerator *enumerator = [set objectEnumerator];
NSObject *item;
while ((item = [enumerator nextObject]) != nil) {
NSLog(@"%@", item);
}
}

Listing 5-6 Modernizing a while loop (after)

{ NSArray *set = ...;
NSObject *item;
for (item in set) {
NSLog(@"%@", item);

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}
}

Convert to Objective-C 2.0

The Convert to Objective-C 2.0 transformation modifies all the source files of the current project to take
advantage of features that Objective-C 2.0 introduces.

This transformation has the following specifiers:

■ Modernize Loops. Specifies whether to perform the transformation on all source code files.
■ Use Properties. Specifies whether to replace instance variables with Objective-C properties.

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 CHAPTER 6

Documentation Access

Documentation is an important resource of the software development process. As you develop products
with Xcode, you’re likely to use documentation to learn about Apple’s technologies, read about system
frameworks, and look up API reference. The ADC Reference Library provides a comprehensive collection of
documentation that includes these resource types:

■ Articles. Introduce key Apple developer technologies, tools, and topics. These short, focused pieces offer
a great way to learn what's new and useful on the Apple platforms.
■ Guides. Provide conceptual and task-oriented information. They include overviews, tutorials, programming
guides, server administration guides, and developer-tools user guides.
■ Reference documents. Describe and define programming interfaces, file formats, scripting language
terminology, and schemas.
■ Release notes. Provide late-breaking news and highlights of new or changed features in the latest
release.
■ Sample code. Projects are buildable and executable source examples of how to accomplish a task for a
specific Apple technology.
■ Technical notes. Provide late breaking information about new Apple technologies and supplementary
documentation discussing some of the more complex issues related to programming for the Mac OS.
■ Technical Q&As. Provide succinct answers to common queries received at Apple Developer Technical
Support.

In addition to the ADC Reference Library, you may also need to:

■ Consult documentation provided by other vendors, for example, if you use a third-party framework to
develop an application.
■ Find symbol definitions in header files.
■ Look through the man pages for the UNIX commands installed on your file system.

This chapter discusses the documentation-viewing features in Xcode and describes how to use them to
access the variety of information available to you. It also provides details on updating and downloading
documentation and performing documentation searches.

Documentation Access Overview

You can access and view developer documentation by using:

■ Quick Help, which is a lightweight window that provides the reference documentation for a single symbol
without taking the focus away from the window you are working in. See Figure 6-1 (page 93).

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■ The Documentation window, which lets you browse and search items that are part of the ADC Reference
Library as well as any third-party documentation you have installed. See "Using the Documentation
Window" (page 94).
■ The Help menu search field initiates a search whose results you can view in the documentation viewer.
The Help menu also provides commands for starting man page searches (see "Viewing Man Pages" (page
102)), opening a list of Xcode guides, and opening Quick Help.

In addition to developer documentation, you may find useful information by opening a symbol’s header file
directly or examining the header files in a framework. The type of information you can find depends on where
you start looking from from. Table 6-1 lists the four places from which you can look for information, the type
of information you can find, and the action you need to take to find that kind of information.

Table 6-1 Search origins, information type, and instructions

Search from the . . . To find . . . By doing this . . .

Documentation Apple Developer Reference library Type a term in the Search field or use the
window resources browsers

Text editor Reference documentation for a symbol Command Option double-click

Symbol reference Option double-click
Symbol declaration Command double-click

Help menu Apple Developer Reference library Type a term in the Search field
resources Choose “Open man pages”
Installed man pages

Project window Framework header files Select the framework in the Groups &
Files list

Using Quick Help

Have you ever been writing code, or looking at someone else’s code, and you needed to know more about
a particular symbol? Quick Help is designed just for this situation. It is a window that opens inline and contains
the reference documentation for only one symbol. It provides an unobtrusive way to consult API reference
without using the Documentation window. However, when you need to delve deeper into the reference,
the Documentation window is just a click away. You can open Quick Help from within the Xcode text editor.

To open Quick Help:

1. Place the cursor in the symbol that you want to learn more about.

2. Press the option button at the same time you double-click the mouse.

Note: The keyboard equivalent is Control-Command-?.

You can also open Quick Help by choosing Help > Quick Help.

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Quick Help Content

Figure 6-1 shows Quick Help with information for the colorWithAlphaComponent: method of the NSColor
class.

Figure 6-1 Quick Help

The top portion always contains the following:

■ The close button, which lets you manually close Quick Help.
■ The name of the symbol you are looking up.
■ Documentation button, which opens the reference document for this symbol in the Documentation
window, were you can view additional details about this symbol as well as read about all the other
symbols defined for this API.
■ A button that opens the header file that defines this symbol.

The middle portion contains information about the symbol. Quick Help can display the following information
(what you see depends on the type of symbol).

■ A description of what the symbol does.

■ The prototype or definition for the symbol.
■ The parameter names and a short description for each.
■ Related API for functions and methods, which displays other routines that accomplish a similar tasks.(not
available for build settings).
■ Related documents, which lists programming guides or other documents that describe how to use the
symbol.
■ Sample-code projects that use this symbol.
■ Availability information. You can view per-architecture availability information by hovering the pointer
over the availability statement.

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Tip: You can control the layout and the content of Quick Help in Documentation preferences. See "Customizing
Quick Help" (page 101).

Quick Help Behavior

Quick Help has two behaviors:

■ Transient. The default behavior is for Quick Help to provide information for one symbol and then close.
The window appears inline, either just below or above the line that contains the symbol you
Option–double-clicked. It stays open until you click or type in the editor, or until you click a button or
link in Quick Help.
■ Persistent. If you move Quick Help it remains open until you click the close button or Option–double-click
a symbol. Whenever you click a symbol, Quick Help displays information about that item. Persistent
mode lets you explore a series of symbols without the need to Option–double-click each time.

Using the Documentation Window

The Documentation window lets you view HTML-based documents about Apple tools and technologies and
search through developer documentation that includes API reference, programming guides, tutorials, technical
articles, and sample code. You can also view third-party documentation. The window offers a number of
features that help you get the most out of the documentation Apple provides.

To open the Documentation window, choose Help > Developer Documentation. The first time you open the
Documentation window, it opens to the Xcode Quick Start page, shown in Figure 6-2.

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Figure 6-2 The Xcode Quick Start page

The toolbar provides controls for:

■ Navigating documents. There are standard controls for the previous and next, and a pop-up menu that
lets you choose jump to the top page for each documentation set that’s available to you.
■ "Using Bookmarks" (page 95)
■ "Searching Documentation" (page 96).

The Documentation window is tailored specifically to access and display content from documentation sets.
A documentation set is a package of documents that provide information about a specific operating system,
software development kit (SDK), technology, or toolset. The documentation sets provided by Xcode are
published by Apple, but you can also view documentation sets provided by third parties. See "Subscribing
to Documentation Feeds" (page 101).

Using Bookmarks
Bookmarks provide easy access to documentation that you use frequently. The Bookmarks menu in the
toolbar lets you:

■ Add a bookmark
■ Choose a previously added bookmark

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■ Manage bookmarks. When you choose this item, a dialog appears that lets you rename, delete, or reorder
your bookmarks.

Searching Documentation
Searching is often the fastest way to find documentation. The Documentation window provides a search
field and a search bar for defining a documentation search, as shown in Figure 6-3.

Figure 6-3 Documentation-search results

You can control the search results you get by specifying:

■ The term to search for. This is the text that must be present in the documents that make up the search
results. See "Specifying the Search Term" (page 97).
To start a search using the symbol selected in the text editor as the search term,
Option-Command–double-click the symbol.
■ The position of the search term in the result, which can be contains, prefix, or exact. See "Specifying the
Position of the Search Term" (page 98).

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■ The documentation sets in which Xcode searches for the search term, also called the search scope. The
default is to search all documentation sets. See "Choosing Which Documentation Sets to Search" (page
98).
■ The languages to search. You can choose any combination of available languages, including C, C++, and
Objective-C. See "Choosing Which Languages to Search" (page 98).

Xcode always performs three types of searches simultaneously—API reference, title, and full-text. As soon
as you start typing text in the search field, Xcode begins a search. The results appear in the search results
pane.

You can sort the search results by symbol name, class name, and type using the search results shortcut menu.

Specifying the Search Term

A search term can be a word or phrase or may be an elaborate expression using Boolean operators (Table
6-2), required-terms operators (Table 6-3 (page 97)), and wildcard characters. The smallest unit at which
search results are evaluated is a single HTML file; in Apple's developer documentation, this typically corresponds
to a section in a chapter, a group of function descriptions, or a class. If your search term is too restrictive, you
may not get any results at all.

Table 6-2 Boolean operators listed in order of precedence from highest to lowest

Operator Description

() logical grouping

! NOT

& AND

| OR

For example, to find documents about the Fonts window that deal with underlining or coloring text, you
want to find documents that contain the words fonts, window, underline, and color, with “underline” and
“color” each grouped with “fonts” and “window.” You can do that with the following search term:

(fonts window underline) | (fonts window color)

Simpler than a Boolean search term, a required-terms search lets you search for terms that must or must not
appear in documents returned as a search result.

Table 6-3 Operators that specify whether or not terms should appear in the results

Required-terms operator Description

+ Indicates a term that must appear in any document returned

- Indicates a term that must NOT appear in any document returned

For example, entering +window returns all documents containing the word “window,” similar to the behavior
you get by simply entering “window” as a search term. However, if you enter +window -dialog, you will
get all documents containing the word “window” but NOT the word “dialog.”

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Using Boolean operators to construct the previous search term, you would write:

window & (!dialog)

If you are not sure exactly how a particular term appears in the documentation, you can use a wildcard search
to include all variations of a search term in the search results. For example, if you are looking for all
documentation about buttons in Mac OS X, you probably really want to see all documentation containing
either the word “button” or the word “buttons.” Rather than have to specify each of these as separate terms,
you can simply use the wildcard character to construct the following search term, which returns all documents
containing the word “button” or any word with the prefix “button.”

button*

You can use the wildcard character anywhere within a search string. Using a wildcard character at a location
other than at the end of a search term may result in longer search times.

Specifying the Position of the Search Term

To specify the position of the search term, click one of the following items in the search bar:

■ Contains. This is the default. Matches documents that have words that contain the words specified in
the search term. For example, the search term stringWith UTF returns documents that contain words
such as “stringWithFormat” and “initWithUTF8String,” each document containing at least one word that
contains the string “stringWith” and one word that contains the string “UTF”.
■ Prefix. Matches documents that contain words that begin with the words specified in the search term.
For example, with the NS CF search term, the search result is made up of documents that contain words
such as “NSWindow” and “CFString,” each document containing at least one word that starts with the
string “NS” and one word that starts with the string “CF”.
■ Exact. Matches documents that contain words that exactly match the words specified in the search term,
each document containing all the words specified in the search term.

Choosing Which Documentation Sets to Search

To specify which documentation sets to search, use the doc sets menu in the search bar. You can specify all
doc sets or select one or more doc sets.

Choosing Which Languages to Search

To specify which languages to search, select them in the languages menu in the search bar. The available
languages are C, C++, JavaScript, and Objective-C.

Opening Sample Projects

The ADC Reference Library contains many sample-code projects that you can examine to learn how to use
Apple technologies in your products. When you download sample-code projects, Xcode unarchives and
opens those projects, getting you to the sample fast.

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Setting Documentation Preferences

The Documentation preferences pane (shown in Figure 6-4) provides options for managing your
documentation sets, customizing Quick Help, and setting the minimum font size used in the Documentation
window.

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Figure 6-4 Documentation preferences

This pane is described in more detail in the sections that follow.

Managing Subscriptions and Updating Documentation

The Documentation Sets group in Documentation preferences lists, by publisher, the documentation sets
that are:

■ Installed (black text)

■ Available but not installed (gray text)

The options that you can set to manage subscriptions and update documentation sets are listed in Table
6-4.

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Table 6-4 Options that affect documentation subscriptions and updates

Option Description

Check for and install Gives Xcode permission to check for updates to the documentation. If Xcode
updates automatically finds an update, it immediately downloads that content for you. Xcode checks
for updates daily and each time you launch Xcode.

Check and Install Now Lets you manually check for updates to the documentation. If Xcode finds an
update, it immediately downloads that content for you.

Add Documentation Set Clicking this button opens a window that lets you provide a URL to an RSS
Publisher documentation set feed. See "Subscribing to Documentation Feeds" (page
101).

Get This button appears next to documentation sets that are advertised by a
published (like Apple), but that are not yet installed. Click Get to install that
documentation set.

Subscribe This button appears next to third-party documentation sets that you have
installed but for which you have not yet subscribed. Not all third-party
publishers offer subscriptions.

Subscribing to Documentation Feeds

A documentation feed is an RSS-style web feed that Xcode can check periodically to determine when a
publisher makes available updates to a documentation set or releases a new one. If you want Xcode to let
you know when a publisher whose documentation sets you are interested in releases new content, subscribe
to that publisher’s documentation feed.

When you have one or more documentation sets from a publisher already installed, you may see a Subscribe
button next to the publisher’s name in the documentation-set list. Click the button if you want to stay updated
with that publisher’s content.

When you don’t have any of a publisher’s documentation sets already installed on your computer, create a
subscription by clicking the Add Documentation Set Publisher button. In the dialog that appears, enter the
feed’s URL, which you obtain from the publisher.

When a new documentation set becomes available, it’s listed under the feed name with a Get button next
to it. Click the button to download the documentation set.

Note: If you do not subscribe to a documentation feed, Xcode does not notify you of documentation updates
the publisher of that feed makes.

Customizing Quick Help

You can customize what you see in Quick Help and the order of the content that appears.

To control which fields are displayed in Quick Help:

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■ Make sure there is a check mark only in the fields you want to see.

To change the order in which content appears in Quick Help:

■ Drag the field names to the order you prefer.

Setting the Minimum Font Size

To ensure that fonts always use a minimum size

■ Select the option "Never use font sizes smaller than."

■ Choose a font size from the pop-up menu.

Viewing Man Pages

Online manual (or "man") pages provide reference documentation for BSD and POSIX functions and tools,
as well as command-line tools such as xcodebuild. You can find man pages in Xcode in either of the following
ways:

■ Type the name of the tool or function into the search field of the documentation window. Xcode includes
the man page entries for standard C and C++ system calls in its API reference search results and includes
all man page entries in its full-text search. Note that you must have C language searching enabled to
find man pages for system calls.
■ Choose Help > Open man page.
Use the “man page name” option to display documentation on a command-line tool. You can optionally
specify a man page section; for example, access(5). Use the “search string” option to find commands
that are related to a keyword.

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 CHAPTER 7

Keyboard Shortcuts

Xcode lets you change the keyboard shortcuts for actions accessible through menu items or the keyboard,
such as paging through a document or moving the cursor. You can choose a predefined set of keyboard
shortcuts for menu items and other tasks, or you can create your own set. The predefined sets include sets
that mimic BBEdit, Metrowerks, CodeWarrior, and MPW.

This chapter shows how to view and change the keyboard shortcuts for menu items and key-based actions.

Key Bindings Preferences

The Key Bindings pane in Xcode preferences (Figure 7-1) lets you see and customize the list of Xcode
commands and their keyboard shortcuts.

Figure 7-1 Key Bindings preferences

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Here is what the pane contains:

■ Key Bindings Sets menu. This menu lets you choose which set of key bindings are in effect. Xcode
provides four predefined sets: Xcode Default, BBEdit Compatible, Metrowerks Compatible, and MPW
Compatible. You can also add your own custom sets of key bindings.
■ Duplicate button. You cannot edit any of the built-in key bindings sets. To create your own set of custom
key bindings, click this button to create a copy of the current set and edit that copy.
■ Delete button. This button deletes a custom key binding set.
■ Menu Key Bindings pane. This pane lists the key bindings for menu items in Xcode. See "Customizing
Keyboard Shortcuts for Menu Items" (page 104) for details.
■ Text Key Bindings pane. This pane lists the key bindings for text editing actions in Xcode’s editor. See
"Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts for Other Tasks" (page 105) for details.
■ Action/key list. The Menu Key Bindings and the Text Key Bindings pane contain an action/key list, which
list the actions available in Xcode and their corresponding keyboard shortcuts. The Action column lists
the Xcode action—a menu item or text editing command—and the Key column lists the keyboard
shortcut for that action. To edit the key binding for a command, double-click in the Key column and type
the key combination. You can assign more than one keyboard shortcut to an action. To add additional
key combinations, click the plus (+) button.

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts for Menu Items

The Menu Key Bindings pane in Key Bindings preferences (shown in Figure 7-1 (page 103)) provides access
to most of the menus and menu items in Xcode.

Xcode lists keyboard shortcuts using the traditional menu glyphs shown in Figure 7-2 (not all glyphs are
shown).

Figure 7-2 Some of the glyphs that represent keys

Command Shift
Option Control
Left Arrow Home
Right arrow End
Up arrow Page up
Down arrow Page down
Backspace Return
Delete Enter
Escape

The following steps describe how to create a custom set of key bindings, based on the Xcode Default set,
and how to add a keyboard shortcut. In this example, the keyboard shortcut performs a full-text documentation
search.

1. Open Key Bindings preferences.

2. From the Key Binding Sets menu, choose “Xcode Default.”

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3. Click the Duplicate button to create a copy of that set. When prompted for a name for the set, type My
Set.

4. Click Menu Key Bindings.

5. In the Action list, scroll to Help and open that section.

6. Double-click in the Key column in the Find Selected Text in Documentation row to open an editing field,
then press Shift-Command-T (holding the keys down simultaneously). The result is shown in Figure 7-3.

If you try to assign a keyboard shortcut that is already assigned to another action in the current key
binding set, Xcode displays a message indicating which action it is assigned to below the key bindings
table.

Note that Xcode displays the letter “t” in its capitalized form. Whether or not you include the Shift key
as part of a menu keyboard shortcut, Xcode shows letters as they appear in menus (that is, as capitals).

You can use the minus (-) button to clear a menu keyboard shortcut. You can use the plus (+) button to
assign multiple shortcuts to a single action (and you can use any of the shortcuts to initiate the action).

Figure 7-3 Editing a keyboard shortcut for a menu item

7. You can repeat the previous step to add or change other menu keyboard shortcuts.

8. Click Apply or OK to apply your changes.

9. You can now press Shift-Command-T to perform a full-text search of the documentation for the selected
text.

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts for Other Tasks

You can customize keyboard shortcuts for tasks such as editing and formatting text, cursor movement, and
project navigation using steps similar to those described for menu items in "Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts
for Menu Items" (page 104). In addition to its default settings, Xcode provides sets that are compatible with
BBEdit, Metrowerks CodeWarrior, and MPW.

The following steps show how to set a shortcut for the Capitalize Word action:

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1. Open Key Bindings preferences.

2. From the Key Binding Sets menu, choose My Set.

If My Set is not available, create it as described "Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts for Menu Items" (page
104)).

3. Click Text Key Bindings.

4. Double-click in the Keys column in the Capitalize Word row to open an editing field, then press
Shift-Control-C (holding the keys down simultaneously). The result is shown in Figure 7-4.

Figure 7-4 Editing a keyboard shortcut for an editing action

You can use the minus (-) button to clear a keyboard shortcut. You can use the plus (+) button to assign
multiple shortcuts to a single action (and you can use any of the shortcuts to initiate the action).

5. You can repeat step 4 to add or change other keyboard shortcuts for editing actions (or other actions
not shown here).

6. Click Apply or OK to apply your changes.

You can now press Shift-Control-C to capitalize the currently selected word in an editable text control.

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 CHAPTER 8

User Scripts

User scripts are shell scripts you can define in your workspace and that you can execute by choosing them
from the User Scripts menu or using a keyboard shortcut. With these scripts you can invoke command-line
tools and perform operations on the selected text. For example, you can sort the selected lines in the text
editor.

Xcode provides a number of mechanisms for working with user scripts. These features include:

■ The ability to execute text in a text editor window as a shell command or series of commands
■ A number of built-in script variables and utility scripts you can use in menu scripts or other scripts

This chapter describes how to manage and use Xcode user scripts.

Managing User Scripts

Xcode provides predefined user scripts that let you open files, perform searches, add comments to your code,
sort text, and even add HeaderDoc templates that can help you document your header files. And you can
use these files as examples to help write custom scripts.

The User Scripts menu (Figure 8-1) shows the predefined user scripts and the user scripts you add. This menu
reflects the user-script hierarchy defined in the Edit User Scripts window, shown in Figure 8-2.

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Figure 8-1 User Scripts menu

Figure 8-2 The Edit User Scripts window

You use the user-scripts editor to add, modify, and delete user scripts. You can also add user-script groups
(menu groups) and separators.

Adding a user script adds a corresponding menu item to the User Scripts menu. You can define the script in
the text editor pane of the user-scrips editor, or you can specify the location of an existing shell script in your
file system.

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A user script has four attributes, whose values you specify in the Edit User Scripts window:

■ Input. The script’s input. It can be nothing, the selection, or the current file.
■ Directory. The script’s initial working directory. It can be your home directory, the path indicated by the
selected text, or the file system root directory (/).
■ Output. The script’s output mechanism. It can be none, a dialog, the Clipboard, and others.
■ Errors. The destination of the script’s error messages. It can be none, a dialog, the Clipboard, or the
script’s regular output mechanism.

To add a user script:

1. Select the user-script group into which you want to add the user script.

2. Choose User Scripts > Edit User Scripts to open the Edit User Scripts window.

3. Click the Add Script button (+) and choose one of the following items from the menu:

■ New Shell Script. Creates a user-script menu item and a blank shell script, which you edit in the
editor pane.
■ Add Script File. Creates a user-script menu item and prompts you for the location of an existing
shell script file.
■ Add Automator Workflow. Creates a user-script menu item and prompts you for the location of an
existing Automator workflow.

4. Enter the name and keyboard shortcut (if desired) for the user script in the user-script list, as shown in
Figure 8-3.

Figure 8-3 Adding a shell script

5. Choose values from the Input, Directory, Output, and Errors menus.

To remove a user script, user-script group, or separator, select it and click the Remove Script button.

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To edit a file-based user script, select the script in the user-scripts list and click the Edit Script button (this
button is available only for file-based user scripts).

Duplicating User Scripts

Sometimes it may be more convenient to create a user script based on an existing one instead of writing
one from scratch. To create a custom user script based on a predefined user script:

1. Choose User Scripts > Edit User Scripts to open the Edit User Scripts window.

2. Select the user script to duplicate.

3. Click the Add Script button and choose Duplicate Script from the menu.

4. Customize the script and its attributes as appropriate.

Advanced User Scripts

The following sections describe advanced features of shell-based user scripts. The topics covered include
variables you can use in menu script definitions, variables expanded prior to script execution, and special
user output script markers.

Script Input Variables

Shell-based user scripts can also contain a variety of special variables that are expanded by Xcode each time
the script is executed. The following sections describe the supported variables.

Getting Text from the Active Window

These variables are replaced by text in the active window:

■ %%%{PBXSelectedText}%%% is replaced by the selected text in the active text object.

■ %%%{PBXAllText}%%% is replaced by the entire text in the active text object.

The text is expanded verbatim with no quotation marks. In most shells this would be a dangerous practice
because the selection might include single or double quotation marks or any number of other special shell
characters. One safe way to use this in a Bourne shell script, for example, is to have it expand within “here-doc”
style input redirection like so:

cat << EOFEOFEOF

%%%{PBXSelectedText}%%%
EOFEOFEOF

The script above would simply print the selected text to the standard output.

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Getting Information on the Contents of the Active Window

These variables are replaced by information on the text in the active window:

■ %%%{PBXTextLength}%%% is replaced by the number of characters in the active text object.

■ %%%{PBXSelectionStart}%%% is replaced by the index of the first character in the selection in the
active text object.
■ %%%{PBXSelectionEnd}%%% is replaced by the index of the first character after the selection in the
active text object.
■ %%%{PBXSelectionLength}%%% is replaced by the number of characters in the current selection in
the active text object.

Getting the Pathname for the File in the Active Window

This variable Is replaced by the path to the file for the active text object if it can be determined:

%%%{PBXFilePath}%%%

This result may not be accurate. Xcode tries to find the file path first by walking up the responder chain
looking for a window controller that has a document. If it finds one it uses the document’s filename. If it does
not find one, it uses name of the window’s represented file. For more information, see NSWindowController
and NSDocument.

Sometimes this variable expands to nothing and sometimes it may expand to a filename that is not really a
text file containing the text of the active text object. In the Xcode text editor this works correctly. In other
text areas in Xcode (like the build log or any text field) it does not do anything reasonable.

Getting the Pathname for the Utility Scripts

This variable is replaced by the path to the folder that contains a number of built-in utility scripts and
commands:

%%%{PBXUtilityScriptsPath}%%%

These scripts and commands can be used from user scripts to provide functionality such as presenting a
dialog to ask the user for a string or to ask the user to choose a folder or file, or to add to the menu bar of
the host application. See "Built-in Utility Scripts" (page 112) for descriptions of the available utility scripts.

Script Output Markers

When a user script is done executing, Xcode scans the output for certain special markers. Only one output
marker is supported. This variable specifies an exact selection within the output:

%%%{PBXSelection}%%%

By default, Xcode sets the selection to be an insertion point after the newly inserted output text. But if the
output contains one or two instances of this special marker, it uses them to determine the selection. If there
is one such marker, it identifies an insertion point selection. If there are two, all the text between them is
selected. Xcode then removes the markers from the output.

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Using Utility Scripts

Xcode provides several useful built-in utility scripts, which you can use in the user scripts you create.

To use one of these scripts, preface it with the expansion variable %%%{PBXUtilityScriptsPath}%%%,
which specifies the location of the script. For example, the following statement displays a dialog to get input
from the user and places the result in the variable STRING. The original text displayed in the dialog is
“DefaultString”.

STRING = `%%%{PBXUtilityScriptsPath}%%%/AskUserForStringDialog "DefaultString"

"DefaultWindowName"`

In addition to the AskUserForStringDialog script, Xcode provides built-in scripts to:

■ Choosing a new file

■ Choose an existing file or folder
■ Choose an application

For details, see "Built-in Utility Scripts" (page 112).

Built-in Utility Scripts

Xcode provides several useful utility scripts that are built in to Xcode itself. These scripts can be used in menu
definition file scripts or in MPW-style worksheet content. To use one of these scripts, use the
%%%{PBXUtilityScriptsPath}%%% expansion variables. For an example, see "Using Utility Scripts" (page
112).

Specifying a String

AskUserForStringDialog [default-string]

Displays a dialog in the active application and returns the string that the user enters. If supplied,
default-string is the initial content of the text field.

Choosing an Existing File or Folder

AskUserForExistingFileDialog [prompt-string]

AskUserForExistingFolderDialog [prompt-string]

Displays a standard open dialog and returns the path of the file or folder that the user chooses. If supplied,
prompt-string is the prompt in the dialog. Otherwise a default prompt is used.

Choosing a New File

AskUserForNewFileDialog [prompt-string [default-name]]

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Displays a standard save dialog and returns the path of the new file. If supplied, prompt-string is the
prompt in the dialog. Otherwise, a default prompt is used. If supplied, default-name is the default name
for the new file.

Choosing an Application

AskUserForApplicationDialog [title-string [prompt-string]]

Displays an application picker dialog and returns the path of the application the user chose. If supplied,
title-string is the title for the dialog. Otherwise, a default title is used. If supplied, prompt-string is
the prompt in the dialog. Otherwise, a default prompt is used.

Adding a Menu Item from Any Script File

SetMenu add script script menu-title key-equiv input-treatment output-treatment

index [menu-path ...]

Adds a menu item to an existing menu in Xcode. The menu item has the name menu-title, and the keyboard
shortcut key-equiv. (Use "" for no keyboard shortcut.) When the user chooses this command, it invokes
the script script, getting its input from input-treatment and placing its output in output-treatment.
The new item is inserted at index in the menu identified by menu-path. If you don’t specify menu-path
the item appears in the menu bar. menu-path contains the titles of menus and submenus that lead to the
desired menu.

index is a zero-based index starting at the end of all the original items in the menu. For example, the index
0 in the File menu would generally be the first item after Print (usually the last item in the File menu of an
application). Index 2 would be after the second custom item in a menu. Use negative indices to count from
the end of a menu. Index -1 means “at the end,” and Index -2 means “right before the last item.”

The key-equiv, input-treatment, and output-treatment arguments use the same syntax as the values
of the menu definition file directives PBXKeyEquivalent, PBXInput, and PBXOutput respectively. For
example, if input-treatment is Selection, the selected text is the input for the new menu item's script.

This is the most complicated form of the SetMenu command. Usually it is better to use the form described
in"Adding a Menu Item from a Menu Definition Script" (page 113) in conjunction with menu script definition
files.

Adding a Menu Item from a Menu Definition Script

SetMenu add scriptfile script-pathindex [menu-path ...]

Adds menu items to an existing menu in Xcode. The items are read from script-path. See "Adding a Menu
Item from Any Script File" (page 113) for details on the file format. Details such as the menu items keyboard
shortcuts, and input and output treatment are defined within the file. The new items are inserted at the given
index in the menu specified by menu-path. If you don’t specify menu-path, the item appears in the main
menu bar. menu-path contains the titles of menus and submenus that lead to the desired menu.

index is a zero-based index starting at the end of all the original items in the menu. For example, the index
0 in the File menu would generally be the first item after the Print command (usually the last item in the File
menu of an application). Index 2 would be after the second custom item in a menu. Use negative indices to
count from the end of a menu. Index -1 means “at the end,” and Index -2 means “right before the last item.”

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Adding a Submenu

SetMenu add submenu submenu-nameindex [menu-path ...]

Adds a submenu to an existing menu in Xcode. The submenu's title is submenu-name. Initially, it has no
items. The new submenu is inserted at index in the menu specified by menu-path. If you don’t specify
menu-path, the item appears in the main menu bar. menu-path contains the titles of menus and submenus
that lead to the desired menu.

index is a zero-based index starting at the end of all the original items in the menu. For example, the index
0 in the File menu would generally be the first item after the Print command (usually the last item in the File
menu of an application). Index 2 would be after the second custom item in a menu. Use negative indices to
count from the end of a menu. Index -1 means “at the end,” and Index -2 means “right before the last item.”

Adding a Menu Separator

SetMenu add separator index [menu-path ...]

Adds a separator to an existing menu in Xcode. The new separator is inserted at index in the menu specified
by menu-path. If you don’t specify menu-path, the item appears in the main menu bar. menu-path contains
the titles of menus and submenus that lead to the desired menu.

index is a zero-based index starting at the end of all the original items in the menu. For example, the index
0 in the File menu would generally be the first item after the Print command (usually the last item in the File
menu of an application). Index 2 would be after the second custom item in a menu. Use negative indices to
count from the end of a menu. Index -1 means “at the end,” and Index -2 means “right before the last item.”

Removing a Custom Menu Item

SetMenu remove item index [menu-path ...]

Removes a custom item from an existing menu in Xcode. The custom item at index in the menu specified
by menu-path. If you don’t specify menu-path, the item is removed from the main menu bar. menu-path
contains the titles of menus and submenus that lead to the desired menu.

index is a zero-based index starting at the end of all the original items in the menu. For example, the index
0 in the File menu would generally be the first item after the Print command (usually the last item in the File
menu of an application). Index 2 would be after the second custom item in a menu. Use negative indices to
count from the end of a menu. Index -1 means “at the end,” and Index -2 means “right before the last item.”

Only items and submenus added by a SetMenu command can be removed by the SetMenu remove item
command. You cannot remove the standard Xcode menu items.

Removing All Custom Menu Items from a Menu

SetMenu remove all [menu-path ...]

Removes all custom items from an existing menu in Xcode. All custom items in the menu identified by
menu-path are removed. If you don’t specify menu-path, the item is removed from the main menu bar.
menu-path contains the titles of menus and submenus that lead to the desired menu.

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This command applies to items and custom submenus but does not recurse into original submenus. For
example, if you add an item to the File menu and you add a menu called My Scripts to the main menu bar,
SetMenu remove all removes the My Scripts menu but does not remove the custom item in the File menu.
SetMenu remove all File removes the custom item from the File menu.

Only items and submenus added by a SetMenu command can be removed by the SetMenu remove all
command. You cannot remove the standard Xcode menu items.

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Resetting Xcode

To reset Xcode to its factory settings for the logged-in user, run these commands in Terminal:

> defaults delete com.apple.Xcode

> rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Xcode

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Resetting Xcode

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REVISION HISTORY

Document Revision History

This table describes the changes to Xcode Workspace Guide.

Date Notes

2010-05-27 Updated information about the Overview toolbar menu.

2009-10-19 Documented improvements to file-navigation in the text editor and downloading

sample-code.

Added "Navigating Code" (page 55).

Added "Opening Sample Projects" (page 98).

Updated "Completing Code" (page 60).

Updated "General Preferences" (page 35).

2009-06-03 Described documentation-viewing improvements and new features; added

refactoring information.

Added "Refactoring Code" (page 81) from content previously published in Xcode
Refactoring Guide, which has been retired.

Updated "Documentation Access" (page 91) with documentation-viewing

improvements and new features, including Quick Help.

Added index.

2009-01-06 Made minor content fixes.

Added steps to reset Xcode to its factory settings in "Resetting Xcode" (page
117).

2008-11-14 Updated screen shots and incorporated editorial improvements.

2008-09-09 Added missing cross-references.

2008-05-22 New document that provides an overview of the Xcode workspace, and shows
how to use its components and features.

Updated "User Scripts" (page 107) for Xcode 3.0.

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 REVISION HISTORY
Document Revision History

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 Index

Code Warrior, keyboard shortcuts compatible with 105

A code
formatting. See code formatting
Activity Viewer 26 editing symbols in 65
all-in-one project window layout 22 indenting 65
API reference searching 92, 97 colors of text in editor 59, 78
column positions, viewing 72
comments
adding to project items 34
B condensed project window layout 21
BBEdit keyboard shortcuts compatible with 105
bookmarks 34, 95
for documentation 95 D
for files and locations 34
Boolean operators in searches 97 default project window layout 20
braces detail view 11, 16
indenting 57 doc sets. See documentation sets
matching 58 documentation feeds 101
brackets, matching 58 documentation sets 95
documentation window
defined 92
illustrated 95
C documentation
adding a bookmark 95
C text macros 68 downloading sample code 98
C++ text macros 68 searching 96
code completion 60 viewing 91
configuring 63 viewing man pages 102
symbol index 60
code focus 64
code folding 65
code formatting 59 E
code layout 56
indenting options 58 Edit User Scripts window 108
line wrapping 59 encodings, file 46
manual indenting 57
syntax-aware indenting 56
using delimiters 58
code scoping 63 F
code focus 64
favorites bar
code folding 65
adding items to 33
Code Sense preferences 77
file encodings 46

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 INDEX

file history menu 51 File 44

File Info window 45 inspectors, introduced 25
File Types preferences 40
files
changing permissions 43
closing 43 K
creating 37
Key Bindings preferences 103
deleting 43
key bindings. See keyboard shortcuts
grouping 30
key equivalents. See keyboard shortcuts
navigating 55
keyboard shortcuts 103
opening 37
compatible with third-party source editors 105
opening files Xcode can't handle 42
customizing for menu items 104
saving 43
customizing for tasks not in menus 105
viewing information about 44
setting the type 47
focus ribbon, illustrated 49
Fonts & Colors preferences 78 L
full-text search 97
Function menu 51 line endings 47
line numbers, viewing 72

G
M
General preferences 35
Groups & Files list 12 macros. See text macros
splitting 15 man pages, viewing 102
viewing 33 menu items, adding with scripts 113
illustrated 13 message bubbles 70
groups Metrowerks CodeWarrior, keyboard shortcuts compatible
smart. See smart groups with 105
static. See static groups MPW, keyboard shortcuts compatible with 105
viewing contents of 14, 33
deleting 30
guidelines
for software development 27 N
gutter
displaying 72 navigating
illustrated 49 files 55
navigation bar 49, 50

H
O
header files
opening 38 Objective-C text macros 68
Open Quickly dialog 38

I
P
Indentation preferences 75
indenting code 56 page guide in text editor 72
Info windows parentheses, matching 58
introduced 25 preferences. See Xcode preferences

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 INDEX

project messages displaying or hiding 15

viewing 70 types of 12
project window 11 snapshots
illustrated 11 defined 82
project window layouts 20 software development tips 27
all-in-one 22 source files
changing 20 creating 37
condensed 21 opening 37
default 20 static groups 13, 30
defined 11 status bar 11, 19
saving changes to current 24 symbol names
project window toolbar. See toolbar editing 65
projects syntax coloring 59
using multiple 29 syntax-aware indenting 56
viewing and managing information 25
organization of 27

T
Q tab options 57
targets
Quick Help setting multiple 28
defined 91 viewing information 25
using 92 Text Editing preferences 73
text editor 49
customizing 72
displaying page guides 72
R displaying the gutter 72
overriding the default 39
refactoring
setting fonts and colors 78
defined 81
specifying an editor type 40
steps 83
splitting 55
transformations 84
using an external editor 41
using snapshots with 82
viewing column positions and line numbers 72
workflow illustrated 83
text macros 66
reference documentation
for C 68
searching 97
inserting 66
using built-in macros 68
for C++ 68, 70
S for Objective-C 68, 70
title search 97
sample code toolbar 11, 18
downloading 98 transformations 84
searching convert to Objective-C 2.0 89
in Open Quickly dialog 38 create superclass 86
in projects 17 encapsulate 86
API reference 92 extract 86
documentation 96 modernize loop 87
using Boolean operators with 97 move down 87
shell commands, executing within a selection 71 move up 87
shell scripts. See user scripts rename 85
smart groups 13, 31
configuring 31
creating 31

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 INDEX

U
Unicode, choosing for file encoding 46
user scripts 107
adding 109
built-in utility scripts 112
defined 107
duplicating 110
using built-in 107
using special input values 110
using special output markers 111
using utility scripts 112
User Scripts menu 108
utility scripts 112

W
window layouts
changing 20

X
Xcode preferences
Code Sense 77
File Types 40
Fonts & Colors 78
General 35
Indentation 75
Key Bindings 103
Text Editing 73

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