I've always searched for a decent visual diff tool for git diffs and merges and have never found one that is both great to use and stable... I've noticed that Xcode 4 has git built in now so was wondering how I could use both for my work.
So question 1)
I only do web dev, no OSX or iOS apps... but is there a way I can tap into Xcode to use their visual diff tool maybe?
question 2)
Without realising git was bundled, I installed Xcode (so Homebrew works) then installed git separately with "brew install git". Have I now doubled up and do I need to delete the one I installed with Homebrew?
question 3)
Would Xcode be any use to me for any reasons that I haven't noticed? would it be any use for project handling or anything?
Many thanks :)
1) Xcode ships with with its own three-way merge tool: /Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge.app/ I haven't used Git in Xcode much but I bet that's the tool they use for doing diff/merging.
2) You doubled up but don't worry about it, many times people will install newer versions of OS X supplied tools (just make sure not to overwrite the one supplied by OS X.)
3) If you're not doing OS X/iOS development, I don't see Xcode being that good for you. The editor in Xcode leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion.
My two cents. :)
Related
I do not work on iOS or OSX apps, but I do a fair amount of other development. Therefore, I need to keep things like python, gcc, etc. How can I uninstall the xcode app without removing these other things?
How can I uninstall the xcode app without removing these other things?
First point to note is that python comes pre-installed on your mac and can be interacted with independently of Xcode.
You delete the Xcode application from your applications folder (/Applications) and leave the developer tools in place. This would leave the command line tools in place, you could call this a bit of a hack.
location of command line tools:
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/
Completely remove Xcode and command line tools and use a package manager tool like HomeBrew to install the tools you require.
I was wondering if there is a way that I could install Xcode 6 along side Xcode 5. I've seen people say you could but they haven't really explained why. Can someone help to explain why? Also, how would you uninstall it if I wished to in the future?
It's simple. The Xcode 6 beta is named Xcode6-beta.app and you drag install it into /Applications. The GM version of Xcode is called Xcode.app. If you need to switch the command line tools you use xcode-select. Nothing has changed here. It's the same as it's been. When you want to "uninstall" it, drag it to the trash. It's that simple.
You can also change the default command line tools via GUI, if you prefer: XCode > Preferences > Locations, Dropdown "Command Line Tools"...
Attention, you can effectively install Xcode 6 and keep Xcode 5 but this is not working perfectly fine. For example this broke my Xcode 5 IOS6 simulators and I am now unable to run my apps on this old ios version (see here)
I didn't find any solution for now and there may be others problems, so be aware this operation is not without risks
You might be far better off creating a partition with OSX Yosemite and installing Beta Software there. I moved over my apps to the Yosemite partition and only the Xcode 6 Beta 4 ran them - yeah!
Here is where I will work with untested software.
Good luck!
I've just done a clean install of XCode 3.2.6 on Snow Leopard, to the default /Developer dir.
Is the right/normal way that all libs, and software tools such as CMake/git should be installed inside /Developer too? Is it comparable with how Linux expects standard dirs to be used for things, or more like Windows where it's all down to personal preference?
Any good guide for a experienced developer who's a noob to Mac dev is appreciated. For instance I'm confused where and how my SVN client came from and why I have SVN but not Git.
In general, you should not install anything inside of /Developer (not /Development). You should assume that anything under it is managed by Apple via Xcode packages. For additional command line tools and libraries, one standard Unix-y practice is to install them in /usr/local which is provided for such purposes. (Do not install anything in any other /usr locations as they are also managed by Apple.) But, rather than building and installing a lot of third-party software - like git - yourself or using binary installers from different providers which may not play well together, it is a good idea to use one of the open-source package managers for OS X. The most widely used are Homebrew, MacPorts, and Fink. Pick one and stick to it.
In Xcode 3, Apple shipped svn but not git. That changes in Xcode 4, the default on 10.7 Lion, which does include git. And, as of Xcode 4.3, there no longer is a /Developer directory as Xcode itself is now an app in /Applications and the items formerly in /Developer are included within its app bundle.
Can I install two versions of Xcode on my Mac? I'm planning to install 10.5 and 10.6. If this is possible please let me know...
Kevin
I'm sorry, what? The version of xcode on snowy builds 10.5 and 10.6 apps. If you partition your hard drive and have 10.5 and .6 on each separate partition then you need xcode on each one to work
If you have OS X 10.6, you should be able to target 10.5 (as well as 10.6, of course) from within that version. You should not have two separate installs of Xcode.
Maybe do some Googling to find out more details on how to do it. Here's something to get you started.
As others have already pointed out, installing two version of Xcode is probably not necessary. However, to answer the question directly, it is possible to do so. At install time, you will need to specify a directory different than the default. For instance, instead of /Developer/... put the second install in /DeveloperXcode3.1/... or something like that.
That said, the only time I've found a need to do that is with beta versions.
I've just unwrapped my new MacBook Pro (yay!) and am now setting it up properly for development. Since I want to avoid clutter, I'm wondering if I really need to install the Xcode tools at all (I never use the IDE or Mac specific tools), since I'll install a newer version of GCC anyway, using MacPorts.
So, is there any benefit in installing Xcode? Is it necessary? What kind of set-up does it do behind the scenes? Basically: can I skip this or will it come back to haunt me because some Unix development tools just assume that OS X is always set up in this way?
In order to perform an easy and successful install of MacPorts, already having tools from the xCode installer is necessary. You only need the install option that places a copy of the unix/header files outside of xcode; everything else can remain uninstalled.
A friend of mine recently released this:
https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer
Have fun :)
I tried this trick and I was constantly chasing missing header files and such. Just install XCode.
We primarily use the Xcode IDE for building Cocoa/Carbon applications. Xcode typically has different project templates (and project settings fixed accordingly). As long as you are not going to generate a Universal Binary or a framework I think you should be ok. As far as I am concerned, when I am too pissed with Xcode, I go back to the command line, set up the paths myself and start using GDB.
First of all, congratulations on the new MBP. I recently bought a 15" unibody myself. =)
You can safely skip Xcode installation, and you can install almost everything Xcode installs through MacPorts, except Xcode itself, of course.
However, I believe you'll find yourself installing Xcode one day anyway, and installing Xcode is much easier than installing all the tools (especially GCC) through MacPorts.
You can strip down the Xcode install quite a lot - when you install Xcode there is a "Customise" button where you can remove a lot of stuff (gigabytes worth).
You can also go in and delete stuff from /Developer/, for example the 10.3 SDK is about 150MB (I think), and if you're not writing software for that it's quite safe to delete. Obviously be careful when deleting, but if you break things, you can always reinstall the Developer Tools!
Apple now provides the command line tools as a separate download from Xcode. They work with Lion and Mountain Lion. You can download them from the Apple Developer Center.
(This is noted on the osx-gcc-installer GitHub page.)