Project Organization for a Modern Xcode App

It’s easy to just throw more targets at a project, but since Xcode 4 there have been nicer ways to organize your project and build settings for larger apps. This isn’t a deep dive into targets/workspaces/schemes (oh my, the pain!) but rather a simpler overview of using them all together to pull off some very common use-cases in modern projects.

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1. Project organization for a modern Xcode app Curtis Herbert @parrots
2. Simple beginnings
3. Xcode 3 Build configurations, targets
4. Xcode 4+ New: schemes and workspaces
5. Target Apple: “Instructions for building one product”! Translation: A product/app/ executable. • Which source files? • Build steps (link libraries, compile, copy resources, etc) • Build settings like provisioning profile, preprocessor macros • Executable information like name, ID, icons, etc
7. Build configuration Method to customize a target’s build settings #ifdef DEBUG For example: • Provisioning profile • App icon • App name • Bundle ID • Preprocessor macros
10. When do you want another target? Two distinct apps with (some) shared code.! ! Test harness, for example. Isolate test code from normal builds.
11. Scheme Apple: “Instructions for building targets and performing actions”! Translation: what to do when you build, run, archive, etc • Which target(s) to build? • Which build configuration? • Diagnostic flags like zombie objects, command-line arguments
13. One target The power of build configurations
14. Demo
15. Further reading WWDC 2011 - 313: Mastering schemes in Xcode 4 ! “Unique icons for debug, beta, and App Store builds in Xcode 5” - http://blog.consumedbycode.com