In Xcode 10, the toolbar had an inter-locking ring icon which showed the assistant editor, it's missing in Xcode 11.
In Xcode 10, the toolbar had an inter-locking ring icon which showed the assistant editor, it's missing in Xcode 11.
The interface has changed a little, but the functionality is still there. The top right corner of the editor pane has two buttons:
Clicking the left button, which looks like lines of text, displays the popup menu, where you can choose various editor configuration options. Clicking the right button just narrows the existing editor and adds another one next to it.
Some of the same options are also available in the Editor menu in the main menu bar.
Update: This is from the Xcode 11 beta release notes, and perhaps more fully explains why the UI was changed:
Editors can be added to any window without needing the Assistant Editor. Editors are added using the “Add Editor” button in the jump bar or the File > New > Editor command. Each editor can now be in one of three modes: “Editor Only”, “Editor and Assistant” or “Editor and Canvas”. The latter two modes automatically show relevant content when available. When using multiple editors, the View > Editor > Focus command can be used to temporarily expand the active editor to fill the entire window, hiding other editors. For source control support, the Code Review button in the Toolbar replaces the Comparison Editor. The “Show Authors” command is now available from the Source Editor’s Editor menu. The SCM Log is now in the Inspector Area. (43806898)
With multiple editors possible in a window, you need editor-specific controls for showing the ancillary views like the assistant editor, author view, etc.
From SMGreenfield's comment:
Sometimes I want to look at a different part of the same darn document. There has always been a way to do this, but it involved jumping through hoops.
Just add another editor: click the Add Editor button in the upper right corner of the editor, or choose File > New > Editor. The new editor will default to showing the same file you were working on in the existing editor.
If new editors show up on the right of the existing editor and you'd prefer them to stack vertically, you can choose View > Change Editor Orientation. If you want them to stack horizontally most of the time (the default) but just want one to show up below, choose File > New > Editor Below.
Shortcuts :
control + option + command + return : Show Assistant Editor
command + return : Show Editor only (hide Assistant Editor)
Using Editor on the Toolbar
It has moved, to show it click on icon with horizontal lines and select Assistant.
In Xcode 11 we now have multiple editor panes. You can summon a second pane, a third pane, as many as you like.
When you have a second pane, it does not have to be an automatic assistant. In other words, the editor pane itself either is an assistant or it is not. So if it is not, it is manual. And if it is, it is automatic.
To toggle between being an assistant and being an ordinary pane, choose Assistant from the Editor menu:
If Assistant is checked, this is an assistant and is automatic. What it displays depends automatically on some other pane.
If Assistant is unchecked, this is an ordinary editor pane and is manual. You can display anything you like in this editor.
In case you can't use Add Editor button just use shortcut:
Cmd + Ctrl + Shift + Enter
Turn Assistant on by navigating to the following in Xcode 11:-
Xcode > Editor > Assistant
For Xcode 11.2.1
command + option + return
or
Main Menu -> Editor -> Line View
it is worth noting, that you can also open the assistant editor by alt-clicking the file
I'm new to Go lang, and downloaded a IDE named Gogland-EAP.
(https://download.jetbrains.8686c.com/go/gogland-171.4694.61.dmg)
It's very good, but I don't know how to show opened files in tabs, such as other IDE.
I can only see one opened file at a time, there's no tab at all. After another file opened, the first opened file disappeared.
Is there any special setting for Gogland-EAP I need to set?
Go to:
File -> Settings -> Editor -> General -> Editor Tabs
In section Tab Appearance find Placement drop down list.
If is it set to None then change it to Top.
Confirm with OK button
Is there a way to split Xcode interface when using multiple monitors?
I have 2 monitors but still haven't found an easy way to use it on more than 1 monitor (Storyboard on the left, code on the right) - Like you can do when using Intellij with Android - simple drag n drop of windows
Thanks for any tip,
Just right click on a file and Open in New Window
Go to File > New > Window
As detailed by Apple here
I actually found out just now after using XCode for several years.
You can configure how XCode responds to navigation/linked editors etc from the navigation tab in XCode Preferences.
I set "Optional Navigation" to "Uses Destination Chooser", which apparently was the missing link for using two monitors, since you can e.g. link the editor window with a storyboard view. I also set "Double click Navigation" to "Uses separate window". With these settings, the summary at the bottom looks like this:
- Click: Open in new window
- Option-click : Displays destination chooser
- Option-Shift-click: Opens in next editor
- Double-click: Open in new window
Xcode finally added tabs but the problem is that they behave very strange. For example they will keep a tab open only if it was opened to a new tab.
If you open a file just by clicking in the project tree, Xcode will close your tab as soon as you are clicking on another file in the tree.
Is is possible to make them behave like real tabs and prevent Xcode from reusing them? How?
I use a method similar to franks:
In Preferences > Navigation (or Preferences > General in versions of Xcode prior to 5) you can set Optional Navigation to Uses Separate Tab
Now opt-clicking a file in the file navigator will open it in a new tab
Better yet, opt-clicking links in the code opens the destination file in a new tab
The big feature missing is swapping to an already open tab containing the file if there is one (or staying in the current one).
UPDATE for 2020:
Finally, almost 10 years later, Xcode 12.x now appears to mostly resolve the issue described here. There is a new Navigation Style option in the Navigation settings panel that controls this behavior.
The behavior has some new quirks/design-choices that seem to make sense, but I'm still getting used to the new experience. For example, a tab will get re-used unless the file in that tab has been edited recently; such a tab is indicated with an italics title.
PREVIOUS ANSWER
I don't think you can currently get the behavior you desire (or I desire). While the tabs work like Safari, they don't work like tabs in other popular IDEs (Visual Studio or Eclipse). And for me this kind of sucks.
In general, I expect IDE tabs to keep more than 1 file open. So if I click a file in the project tree, I expect that it will switch to the tab I have opened with that file - if I have already opened it. Instead, XCode 4 changes the current tab to the file I clicked - making 2 tabs with the same file. Having 2 tabs with the same file is fairly useless.
This forces the user to scan the tab bar first to see if the file is currently opened; if it's not opened then you can look to the project tree. But if you click in the project tree first (which is what I tend to do) then you get punished because you will have just killed a tab.
This isn't really an answer insofar as it contains a solution; I mostly just want to join in the griping. But upvoting will make you feel better and prove Apple wrong. :)
The problem with Xcode 4's implementation of tabs is that Apple has implemented them as workspace tabs. In other words, creating a new tab essentially creates a new workspace, each with its own sub-panes with their configurations, etc. It's essentially a whole environment in each tab. There are a number of problems with this choice.
This differs from most IDE/text editors' implementation of file tabs wherein a tab (generally) represents a single file, and each file has its own tab.
The problem with workspace tabs is there are only so many potential different workspaces we could benefit from, severely limiting the actual use of tabs in this way. Beyond this, the additional workspaces just become a liability, introducing more things the user of the application needs to concern him/herself with: for example, what the navigator view is, what editor mode is active (standard, assistant, version), whether the debug console is open, etc. etc. Suddenly switching to a new tab means you now have to worry about getting the environment back in the form you need it, because there's a good chance the other tab wasn't left in the state you expect to find it in. This actually discourages the use of tabs because it introduces more work in the workflow.
File tabs don't have this problem (not counting special cases like split view panes) because all that's changing is the file you're looking at, not your whole environment. Moreover, if implemented properly, file tabs work great as an immediate history, allowing one to quickly switch back to a file that was worked in recently, with little effort. The only way to do this in Xcode is to explicitly set up a new tab environment for each file you want to work with, but you have to be careful not to change the file in that tab or your file all of a sudden becomes lost: again, more work for the user.
Workspace tabs are also significantly heavier-weight than file tabs, because there is much more to remember and switching workspaces involves much more than switching files.
The truth is (and I think most will agree with me on this), to a developer, file tabs are much more useful than workspace tabs, and as it stands Xcode still lacks a proper implementation of this feature that many would consider basic required functionality in an IDE/editor.
Xcode->Preferences->General->Double Click Navigation and from the list, choose Uses Separate Tab.
Well, not a real answer but my personal workaround. The real problem for me is, that a file opened in a tab goes away so easily in xcode 4. Finding a file again can be time-consuming, so I like them to be in a tab and stay there.
I solved this (somehow) for me by exactly identifying the actions I do which cause the tab to switch to another file and replace them by their equivalent actions which open a new tab instead.
Instead of single-clicking a file in the navigator, I always double-click which I have set to open a new tab
Most time I do not use the navigator, as it has a different state of opened and closed folders in each tab. Not useful for me. So I switched to using Option ⌥ Command ⌘ O. When opening a file from this list I keep ShiftOption ⌥ pressed. In the small window appearing I choose 'new tab'.
When clicking on links in code I press ShiftOption ⌥ Command ⌘, too, and open in new tab.
I keep two fixed tabs around for editing target-related settings and to view build results. I completely disabled all automatic tab switching in the prefs, because I noticed this distracted me to much.
I would really love to get something like the xcode 3 favorites bar in xcode 4, this was so simple to use..
I imagine my answer won't bubble up for a while, but if you want this to work like visual studio or intellij (or at least closer)
Preferences->General->Double Click Navigation->Uses a separate tab
Double Clicking a file now will stop opening it in a new window and open it in a new tab.
Single is still dumb and takes over your tab. But if you get used to double clicking (which I was already) this will save you some headaches. I suppose.
I absolutely hate how tabs work in Xcode. However, the only workaround i found that works decent is using the OSX tabs shortcuts:
CTRL + CMD + ->
CTRL + CMD + <-
I found my way in Preferences-Behaviors!
I hated Xcode 4 first for the tab issues discussed here, mainly because the debug information kept opening new files in tabs and changing the navigator
in Behaviors you can define a Debug tab and make the Run and Build jump there in various ways. in the Debug tab I give more space to navigators left and bottom
for similar reasons I have a Find tab, too
the other tabs are for files I am writing in. I start them with the .h which is usually small enough so I need only one view, and then with single clicks in the navegator I open 2-3 versions of the .cpp file so I can set them to the locations where the recent hot spots in the file are. then I close the navigators in those tabs
this does not invalidate the care and tricks given in the other answers here, but makes them far less hard
happy coding!
I found out that when pressing option a.k.a. alt when opening files in the navigator, you will jump to the tab already open with the file and a new tab will open in case it was not yet open.
This technique also works when opening files via cmdshift-O and opening the suggestion with option-enter in stead of simply enter...
Now, if there would be some way to make this the default, i.e. the need to keep pressing option all the time would be removed, that would be a big step forward.
Also I use Behaviors to keep my tabs from being recycled after test or build failures.
(Like other people, I totally mislike Xcode's tab behavior. Apple should take a look at IntelliJ...)
xcode tab bar is so suck, I think Apple should enhance the feature of the tab navigation to avoid followed 3 points.
1. double click a file will let xcode open another tab if it has already been there.
2. for more tabs, the tab will become small and thus I don't know which file in which tab, I want the tab show full name
3. for even more tabs, new tabs will be hidden, instead of two lines of tabs. I want to it show two lines of tab bars.
If you have the tab bar enabled (View/Show Tab Bar) and you double click a file, it appears in it's own window, with a single tab (Be sure the Tab Bar is enabled in both the new and old (main) windows).
Now all you have to do is drag that new window from its tab and drop it into the tab bar of your main window.
It will stay docked as a separate tab, showing that file.
To change the file open in that new tab, go Project / Reveal in Project Navigator, which opens the project navigator at the left hand side.
Tabs in Xcode 4 work like tabs elsewhere on Mac OS X, for example in Safari and Terminal.
One feature I found missing in earlier versions of Xcode 4 was opening an editor as a separate window. Has this feature been put back?
I don't want to go back to MDI hell.
In the Xcode preferences window, under general, there is "Double click navigation." You can set that to use a separate window or a separate tab.