As part of my XCode project, I have a tab-delimited text file that I'd like to be able to edit from within XCode.
The tab key is set to "Indents in leading whitespace" under Preferences->Text Editing->Indentation, and I'd rather leave it as is given that the project is well underway (as discussed here).
Is there a way to insert a tab somehow (besides copying and pasting) despite this setting? (Not "\t" but an actual chunk of whitespace.) Thanks for reading.
Turns out there was a very simple solution sitting right in the File Inspector (⌘-⌥-1 to show):
Just toggle the Indent Using option (under "Text Settings") to Tabs
Related
I use a text file (History.txt) for notes and to keep track of my edits. Xcode 6 is applying the indentation rules to all files, and so manual formatting (using tabs) in my text file is changed when I type a line or copy and paste. For example, typing a semicolon causes a line with leading whitespace to left justify. Prior versions of Xcode didn't do this.
I must have autoindent on for my source code files.
How can I tell Xcode 6 to leave my .txt files alone (no auto indent)?
I had the exact same problem. Didn't find a proper solution, but a workaround is to turn off the auto-indent feature (under Preferences -> Text Editing -> Indentation) for the specific characters that you use a lot in your text files (in my case the colon character was the main culprit) and that you can learn to live without having auto-indent when actually editing code. It's a decent way to get around this problem.
I have been developing in zend studio and there is a feature I miss a lot in Xcode. When you are reading code in a main function and you want to go in a specific function to read something, you can click in the left area of your current line of code were your are, and a flag-mark appears in that line of code, so you can go anywere else in the code and it will be very easy to come back to that line of code you were before because there is a flag and you only have to click on it and you automatically go back. Does Anybody know a similar way to do this in Xcode?
Unfortunately, this feature was present in earlier versions of Xcode (up to Xcode3 IIRC) and was called "Bookmarks", but it was removed since then.
You can use breakpoints (and disable them) as a workaround, even if it's not perfect. I personally prefer using other tricks, like "Open Quickly" and named tabs.
Alternate trick 1 : "Open Quickly"
One trick is to use Command+Shift+O (or "File" menu > "Open Quickly") to quickly open a file. In the field that appears, you can type:
The name or parts of the name of a file.
Typing "MainViewController" will propose to jump to the MainViewController.h or MainViewController.m file.
Typing "MainVC" will work too, as well as "MainViewCtrl", as long as the order of the letters you type is the same as the full name.
Very handy to just type "ContTVCell" to open the ContactsTableViewCell.h file that is hidden deep in subgroups of my project for example
Similarly, you may also type the name or parts of the name of a symbol, especially a method name.
For example, typing tvcellforrow will list you all the definitions of -tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: it could find in your project and let to jump to the one you want
When typing (parts of) the name of a file, adding : followed by a number at the end will allow you to directly jump at the corresponding line
For example, typing mvc:50 will propose you to jump to line 50 of MainViewController.h or MainViewController.m
Another trick : using (named) tabs
Don't forget that you can open tabs in Xcode, which can be very handy in this kind of situation.
When you are editing a file at some interesting position, you can create a new tab to browse elsewhere and go at any other place… and then go back to your first tab to find the code where you left it at the time you switched to the other tab.
Don't forget that you can name your tabs (simply double-click on their title) to give them a more explicit title. You may then quite think of them as "named bookmarks" somehow
Likewise, don't forget that you can detach tabs in separate windows too, if you prefer (for example to keep them around and visible on your secondary screen while you edit another part of your code)
You can even combine this with the "Open Quickly" trick presented above: once you made the "Open Quickly" field appear and typed something into it, instead of just validating using the enter key:
use Alt+Shift+enter to let Xcode present you a small widget that let you choose where you want the file to open (in the current tab, in another tab, in the assistant editor, in a dedicated window…)
use Alt+enter to open the file using the alternate navigation defined in Xcode preferences (Xcode > Preferences > Navigation > Optional Navigation). By default, the behavior when opening a file while using the Alt key is to open the file in the Assistant Editor. Personally I changed that in my Xcode preferences as I prefer to make Xcode open the file in a separate tab instead, which makes Alt+clic much more useful.
Sure, all those tricks with "Open Quickly…" and "Tabs" do not replace the bookmarks feature that you are missing. But they are still nice alternate ways to jump quickly to any position in your code, even any specific line of any specific file in your project, wherever you are in Xcode (even without having to have the Project Navigator visible on the left part of your window), and let you have multiple editors in different tabs to go quickly back to a part of interest in your code
its on top of your editor i have added two pics just check them.
When you navigate to another place in Xcode, say, open a different file, or Command-click and jump to definition, you can go forward and back by swiping right or left on the trackpad with two fingers.
You can also use keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+⌘+→ to go forward, or Ctrl+⌘+← to go back.
Finally, you can click triangular buttons at the top left in your edit area.
There is a go back button at the top left of the editor!
If that is not good enough, whar I do is misuse breakpoints to set flags in my code. The breakpoint navigator thus becomes a table of flags. It isn't much but there you are.
In Eclipse, there are two distinct features: one to format a selection, one to just indent the lines, see e.g. Difference between Ctrl+Shift+F and Ctrl+I in Eclipse. I found the format feature in Visual Studio but how can I actually just indent the lines? Is there some built-in command for that or possibly a 3rd party add-on?
Note: I have asked a couple of friend that use VS daily and they all tried to persuade me that I am looking for the format feature. No I'm not. I tried to live with it for a while and it is just a different feature. I am after the indent/reindent only.
EDIT: I am looking for a clever indent, sometimes called reindent, which is different to just pressing Tab or Shift+Tab (increase/decrease indent level). The indent feature in Eclipse behaves like this:
It places a beginning of current line at the right position, no matter where that line was starting before. So instead of thinking whether you need to increase or descrease the indent level (Tab or Shift+Tab), you just invoke the indent command and it will do the right thing.
Invoking the indent command on an empty line places the caret at the right position for the user to start typing.
It never influences any character beyond the first non-whitespace character.
If you just want to indent some lines, you can
Select them.
Press Tab.
To un-indent them, replace the second step to: Shift+Tab.
You can find more VS shortcuts here.
There are toolbar buttons for this, with wonderfully inconsistent labels (at least in the Visual Studio 2013 I'm using)...
In the "Text Editor" toolbar (in my default setup), I have to buttons whose tooltips are:
"Decrease Line Indent"
"Increase Line Indent"
In the "Customize" dialog, on the "Commands" tab (with "Toolbar" set to "Text Editor") they appear in the list as:
"Line Unindent"
"Line Indent"
And finally, if you press the "Add Command..." button (on the "Customize" dialog) to produce the "Add Command" dialog and select the "Edit" category, you'll see these two entries:
"Outdent"
"Indent"
As far as I can tell, these are all the same two commands, which should do what you want.
They also appear in the Edit -> Advanced menu, at the very bottom.
----- Edit -----
I believe you might be able to turn off all of the "formatting" actions except for indentation, so that when you use the "auto-format" command, only the indentation is "formatted" for you. (Of course this prevents you from ever using the rest of the formatting features without turning them on again, but if you don't use them, this might work!)
Xcode offers the following options under
Preferences > Text Editing > Indentation > Tab key:
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.
I checked the documentation for these options (that's what is to the right of the colons) but I still don't understand. What is "an indentation"? What I'd really like is if Xcode wouldn't act like it knows better than me and try reindenting lines of code that were already perfectly indented (I find it often does this inside of blocks - I'll have my code nested one level more than the line before it, and for whatever reason it tries aligning with the colon that starts the block argument, leading to unwieldy long lines, as if Obj-C doesn't have enough of those.)
Can anyone give me examples of how Xcode's behavior will change if I choose each of those options? Will one of those options make Xcode behave/autoindent the way I want it to?
If what you want is:
if Xcode wouldn't act like it knows better than me and try reindenting lines of code that were already perfectly indented
then the "Tab key" indentation setting has nothing to do with what you want.
Instead, try unchecking "Automatically indent based on syntax" and Xcode will stop changing your indentation level.
Alternatively, uncheck { and } under "Automatic indent for:".
See also: Xcode Text Editing Preferences Help: Setting Source Editing and Indenting Preferences
How can I make code completion case-sensitive?
How can I make Ctrl-k kill the content of the line and the new line character?
How can I make backspace always delete only one character, no matter what it is? Right now, it deletes spaces in chunks equal to my indent level.
How to change the indentation style in file templates? I like to have the opening brace on its own line.
How can I make the font aliased?
I'm using Xcode 3.2.2.
EDIT: Issues 2, 4, and 5 are solved. 1 and 3 are still open.
EDIT2: ad.3. Yes, I set Xcode to use spaces, not tabs.
3.
Look in Preferences : Key Bindings : Text Key Bindings : Indent Friendly Delete Backwards
If the delete key is mapped to this entry change it to plain Delete Backwards.
2.
In that same preference area, you can see that there is no delete line option to map ^k to.
How can I make code completion case-sensitive?
I don't think that's possible.
How can I make Ctrl-k kill the content of the line and the new line character?
I can't answer that one, you might need to write a script to do it.
How can I make backspace always delete only one character, no matter what it is? Right now, it deletes spaces in chunks equal to my indent level.
Backspace always deletes one character. It sounds like your file has tab characters in it, each one of which takes up the space of 4 spaces by default. You can tell Xcode to use spaces instead by de-selecting Tab key inserts tab, not spaces in the Indentation preference panel.
How to change the indentation style in file templates? I like to have the opening brace on its own line.
You need to create custom file templates. You can find the Xcode templates here:
/Developer/Library/Xcode/Templates/File Templates
You need to copy the appropriate templates to this location:
~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/File Templates
You can then edit the template files to use whatever indents you like.
How can I make the font aliased?
You need to use a font that has aliased characters. Try Monaco at 9 or 10 points.