Documentation updated for Xcode 4

Daniel Sperl on April 8, 2011

A few weeks ago, Apple released Xcode 4. It brought a lot of enhancements, like integrating the interface builder directly into the main application, cleaning up the interface and enhancing code completion. All in all, it’s a great update to the development environment, and I can recommend it to anyone who hasn’t upgraded yet. Beware, however, that it takes some time getting used to the new environment: many things have changed and need to be rediscovered. Hang on, though - it’s worth it!

BTW, you can install Xcode 3 and 4 in parallel without problems. Just rename the “Development” folder on your HD (e.g. to “Xcode3”) before installing Xcode 4. That way, you can always start Xcode 3 manually later if you need to.

Sparrow vs. Xcode 4

Thankfully, it’s possible to open up your existing projects directly in Xcode 4 - they should continue to work just like before, without changing any settings. If you should encounter any problems, I recommend you download the latest development version of Sparrow from our GitHub page. The project files in the repository were tested with Xcode 4 and include some slightly extended settings.

I pondered a while if I should use Xcode’s new “Workspaces” for the Sparrow projects. That way, we could get rid of the source tree variables, which would make installation of Sparrow easier. However, this has a few downsides. First of all, the scaffold project and the Xcode templates need a way to find Sparrow - otherwise, Sparrow would need to be added manually for every project. Second, this would have made the project files incompatible with Xcode 3, forcing us to make duplicates of the projects. So I kept the project setup just the way it is - at least, for now. Of course, any Sparrow user is free to use the library directly from within a workspace, without the source tree variable. I made the necessary preparations that are required for that.

Thus, nothing speaks against updating to Xcode 4 for Sparrow users now!

I also updated the documentation on the First steps page and on the wiki, which now contains a tutorial on how to create a project from scratch in Xcode 4. The Xcode project templates are not yet ready, but Ronald is already working on them (thanks, Ronald!) - in the meantime, you can always use the scaffold project. (Remember, the Getting Started page shows you how to work with it.)

Happy coding! :-)