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 turn on curly brace matching?
This worked fine in Xcode 3.x. In Xcode 4 is doesn't work. I've already checked the box for "Automatically insert closing '}'" in the Preferences->Text Editing->Editing panel.
How can I turn on parenthesis matching?
How can I turn on code compeletion for "if/else-if", "for" etc?
In Xcode 3.x I would start to type "for" and autocomplete would provide the parenthesis, curly braces, semi-colons etc. I could then press escape for a menu containing (amongst other things) the option to do a "for i" loop (in which case Xcode would fill in "int i; i < n; i++" with n selected so I could just type a value).
In Xcode 3.x I could do something similar for if/else-if blocks. I could just start to type "if" and autocomplete would provide parenthesis, curly braces etc.
Edit: after looking for the "get info" option for a source code file (was simply right click the file name in Xcode 3) for five minutes I decided to downgrade to version 3.2.x. Which means hours of downloading. This really stinks :-(
Auto-} works a little differently in Xcode4. It doesn't appear as soon as you type the {. You have to hit return after to get the closing brace. So typing { gives the autocomplete. It feels a little odd at first, it took me awhile to adjust, but I think it makes sense. Most coding styles dictate a return after the opening brace, so it pretty much will always auto-close when you want it to. It doesn't give the } though in a case like making a single line if into a multi-line one. You can now add in the opening brace, move the curser to after the line, and enter the closing brace. Before when I did something like that I'd have to spend time deleting the auto-}.
For code completion, it sounds like you're having an indexing issue. Code completion still works as you want (it's actually a lot smarter now) in Xcode4. Your syntax coloring is also usually off when this happens. I ran into it with one of my projects and fixed it by editing my build settings, I had a bad one in it. You might also try deleting the project's derived data in the organizer. That'll force a rebuild of the index.
The "get info" items have moved. It's one of the land mines of the IDE rewrite. They're not in the file inspector. Show the utilities pane and then select the file inspector (the first icon in the tab bar).
Xcode 4 is a bit alien when coming from Xcode 3. They changed a lot of stuff. I'd recommend getting a feel for it. At some time in the near future Xcode 3 will be deprecated and you won't get the new SDks for it. You can have Xcode 3 and 4 both installed at once which is helpful for making the switch. That way you can fall back to Xcode 3 when you get stuck on something and will allow you to gradually make the change.
In Xcode < 4, you could hold the "option" key, and the "Replace All" button would change to "Replace in Selection". As of Xcode 4, this does nothing. Anyone know if there's a new way to do it, or is it bug filing time?
This appears to be working again now, at least in Xcode 4.4.1.
When the find/replace bar appears at the top of the editor, holding down the option key on the keyboard causes "Replace in Selection" to appear in lieu of "Replace All."
I'm glad, because this was an ANNOYING omission.
Another workaround:
In Xcode, select the text, press copy
In a terminal session:
pbpaste|sed 's/SOURCETEXT/NEWTEXT/g'|pbcopy
Return to Xcode window, press paste
Since the original should still be selected, it will just be replaced. You could probably build a simple shell script to do this.
Doug
An few images to supplement the chosen answer:
And holding down Option:
See also
Find/Replace in Xcode using Regular Expressions
Seems like missing functionality. You should file a bug report.
I'm upset that they took out this functionality, as I used it constantly, but here's my workaround. Copy your selected text from Xcode4 to TextEdit or some other word processor, do the find and replace there, and then copy the results back into Xcode.
It's not sexy but it's worth it if you do a lot of these "find and replace on my selection", and you leave the word processor open in Spaces as you work.
They should add "my selection" as an alternative to "workspace" and "my scope".
There is another way only replace the matches you find, rather than just this one or all of them.
I suggest you save a copy first, just in case....
In Find and Replace, Show Find Options (you can do this by pressing the magnifying glass).
Press Preview.
Uncheck all the ones you don't want replacing.
Press Replace
Hope that helps, it did me.
Not ideal, but not too bad:
Do a find and replace in workspace (cmd-opt-shift-f) enter your desired find/replace
Enter your desired search term and hit return
Select the range of replacements from the list of matches on the left
Hit replace (not replace all)
To replace text in a selection using Xcode 9
Press Option-Command-F to bring up the find/replace box.
Enter the search and replace string. Changing the search string will lose any existing selection, so..
Make your selection (again). (If you don't do this, the selection will be the first search string found only)
Hold down the key and "Replace All" will change to "Replace Selection", then click it.
Once you understand that you make your selection AFTER you have entered the search string, then this is not that clumbersome and works fine.
I find alt-command-f easier for local find and replace (4.3) and then working around your selection.
EthenA.Wilson asked in a comment to the OP a couple of days ago:
"Is there a way to do this in Xcode 5?"
For the benefit of those who, like me, had been searching for it, here's how:
After you put your Find and Replace terms in the bars at the top left-hand side of the editor page, select the text you want to search in, then look at the top right-hand side (same bar). You'll see where it says "All", right next to "Replace." Now press the Option key. "All" will change to "All in Selection." Click it, and you're done. Could be a bit more intuitive, but the functionality is there in Xcode 5.
Naturally, good idea to take a snapshot before you click!
HTH!
Not sure which feature prior to Xcode 4 you're referring to, but the shortcut Command+Shift+E gives you "Use Selection for Replace". If you're talking about "Find and Replace in Workspace" (Command+Option+Shift+F), then what you need to do is run your find and then hold down "Shift" or "Command" on the selections shown and then hit "Replace".
Noob xcoder here and for some reason i cannot get the text macros to expand within xcode. For example if i type ifelse and then hit ^. it doesnt automatically expand the macro?? Likewise if i type fo and then ^. it will complete it to either for,fori etc, and will also pop up those options if i hit escape however i cannot get it to expand the macros unless i am misunderstanding how this works?
Make sure the shortcut for menu item Edit->Next Completion is indeed ^. If it is not, go to Xcode preferences, Key Bindings and edit it.
Try rebuilding your code sense index from the Project Info panel.
Is it possible to find and replace in selected text in Snow Leopard Xcode 3.2? There always use to be an option for selected text. Really frustrating. Thanks.
Yeah, but it's a lot less obvious now. If you have the "Find" bar up, change the first dropdown menu to "Find & Replace". Then, if you hold option, the "Replace All" button turns into an "In Selection" button.
You can press Command+Ctrl+F to bring up directly the Find & Replace bar, and press Escape to remove it. I don't think there's anyway to activate the "Replace All" button using the keyboard, but then again there never was afaik.
In XCode 5 and earlier you can highlight a word and hit CMD+CTRL+E and then simply edit the word in line and it applies your edit to all occurrences of that word in the document.
Sometimes an image helps make things a little easier to grasp quickly. So this is to supplement the chosen answer.
And holding down Option: