Group Types

The Groups & Files list contains two types of groups: static groups and smart groups, identified in Figure 1-2.

Static groups organize your project’s source files, including header files, implementation files, frameworks, and other files. (Static groups are themselves grouped under the project group, which is named after the project and is represented by the blue project icon.) A static group, identified by a yellow folder icon, can contain any number of files and other static groups. Static groups help you organize the files in your project into manageable chunks. The project group is a static group that contains all the files, frameworks, libraries, and other resources included in your project.

Smart groups are subdivided into two types: built-in smart groups and custom smart groups.

• Built-in smart groups contain particular classes of components, files, symbols, or items. You cannot customize the contents of these groups. There are several built-in smart groups:

  • Targets. Contains the targets in your project. A target contains the instructions for creating a software component or product. Targets are described in more detail in Targets.

  • Executables. Contains all the executables defined in your project.

  • Errors and Warnings. Lists the errors and warnings generated when you build. This group is described further in Viewing Errors and Warnings.

  • Find Results. Contains the results of any searches you perform in your project. Each search creates an entry in this group. For more information on the Find Results group, see Viewing Search Results.

  • Bookmarks. Lists locations—files or specific locations within a file—to which you can return easily. For more information on the Bookmarks smart group, see Defining Bookmarks.

  • SCM. Lists all the files that have source control information. See Managing Files Under Source Control for details.

  • Project Symbols. Lists the symbols defined in your project. This group is described further in Viewing the Symbols in Your Project.

• Custom smart groups collect files that match a certain rule or pattern. These groups have purple folder icons and you can customize their contents using wildcard patterns or regular expressions. There are two types of smart groups: simple filter or simple regular expression. Xcode provides two predefined custom smart groups:

  • Implementation Files. Contains the implementation files in your project, such as those with the extensions c, cpp, and m, to name a few.

  • NIB Files. Contains the nib files used to create your product’s user interface.

For more information on using static groups and smart groups to organize your project items, see Grouping Files.

Viewing the Contents of Groups

You have a couple of options for viewing the contents of a group in the Groups & Files list. If you prefer the outline view, you can open the group directly in the Groups & Files list. You can also select one or more groups to view their contents in a simple searchable list in the detail view (see The Detail View for details).

To view or hide the contents of a group in the Groups & Files list, use its disclosure triangle.

To view the contents of a group in the detail view, select the group in the Groups & Files list. In general, the detail view shows more item information than the Groups & Files list.

You can display additional attributes for the items shown in the Groups & Files list using the shortcut menu in the list header (Control-click the header to show the shortcut menu). A column for each attribute appears on the left side of the list.

Displaying and Hiding Smart Groups

As described in Group Types, an Xcode project has a number of smart groups that organize particular types of project items. These groups help you find information such as symbols or build errors. However, you may not need to display all the smart groups in the Groups & Files list.

To specify which smart groups the Groups & Files list displays, use the Preferences submenu in the shortcut menu that appears when you Control-click an item in the Groups & Files list.

To rearrange a smart group, drag it to its new position in the Groups & Files list.

To delete a group, select it and choose Edit > Delete. You can restore deleted groups using the Preferences menu described earlier.

Splitting the Groups & Files View

In large projects, the Groups & Files list can get long, making it difficult to move items around. You can split the Groups & Files view for a project by clicking the Split button, shown in Figure 1-3.

Each Groups & Files view can display a different area of the Groups & Files list, making it easy to keep frequently accessed groups handy or to move items between groups. You can drag the resize control between the views to redistribute the space between them. To remove a Groups & Files view, click the Close Split button.

By default Xcode splits the view vertically. However, you can also split a view horizontally. To split a view horizontally, hold down the Option key while clicking the Split button.

Information Displayed in the Detail View

The type of information displayed in the detail view varies, depending on the item selected in the Groups & Files list. For example, if you select a group of source files in the Groups & Files list, the detail view displays each of the files in that group, along with information about those files, such as the file’s build status or code size. However, build status and code size make no sense for errors and warnings, so when you select the Errors and Warnings group, you see a list of error and warning messages and the locations at which they occur.

This is the information available in the detail view:

• File kind. The first column, with an empty column heading, shows an icon indicating the type of the file. For example, a nib file is marked by the Interface Builder file icon. The icon for a C++ class file displays the characters “C++”.

• File Name. The File Name column displays the names of the files.

• Build status. The column marked by the hammer icon displays the build status of each file. If a file has been changed since the active target was last built, this column displays a checkmark, indicating that the file needs to be built. If the file is up to date, this column is empty.

• Code. The Code column displays the size of the compiled code generated from the file.

• Build errors. The column marked by the error icon displays the number of errors in the file. If this column is empty, the file either contains no errors or has not yet been built.

• Warnings. The column marked by the warning icon displays the number of warnings for the file. If this column is empty, the file either has no warnings or has not yet been built.

• Target membership. The column marked by the target icon indicates whether the file is included in the active target. If the checkbox next to a file is checked, then the active target includes that file.

• SCM. The SCM column shows the SCM status of the file.

• Path. The Path column shows the file system path to the item.

• Comments. The Comments column displays any note or other information that you have associated with the file in the Comments pane of the File Info window.

Not all of these columns are visible by default. You can choose which columns are shown in the detail view by using the shortcut menu that appears when you Control-click anywhere in the header. You can display many of these same columns in the Groups & Files list, using the same mechanism. For more information, see The Groups & Files List and The Detail View.

You can display the columns of the detail view in any order. To reorder the columns, drag the heading of any column to its new position.

You can also reveal the selected item in the detail view in the Groups & Files list. For example, if the current selection in the detail view is an individual source file, Xcode selects that file in the Groups & Files list, disclosing the contents of any static groups that the file belongs to, as necessary. To reveal the detail view selection in the Groups & Files list, choose View > Reveal in Group Tree.

Searching and Sorting in the Detail View

With the detail view you have a couple of ways to find and view information. You can sort the contents of the detail view according to the information in any of the visible categories simply by clicking the column heading for that category. For example, to sort by filename, click the File Name heading.

Using the search field in the toolbar, you can quickly search the contents of the detail view. As you type, Xcode filters the contents of the detail view, displaying only those items that have matching text in at least one of the columns.

The search field supports several types of search; you can choose the search type from the pop-up menu in the search field. Xcode supports the following searches:

• String Matching. Xcode determines a match using simple string comparison, filtering out items that do not match the string in the search field. This is the default type of search for the search field. It is also the fastest.

• Wildcard Pattern. Xcode uses the wildcard pattern in the search field to find items that contain the specified characters anywhere in any of the visible columns. For example, enter *View*.h to find all header files with “View” in their name.

• Regular Expression. Xcode uses the regular expression in the search field to find matching items. For example, to find all C implementation and header files in a static group, enter \.(c|h)$

Figure 1-5 shows an example of a sting matching search.

As you type, the status bar displays the scope of the search—the current selection in the Groups & Files list—and the number of items found. Pressing the Home key or choosing the project item (indicated by the project icon) from the search field’s pop-up menu changes the focus of the search field to the whole project.

The Project Page

The project page, shown in Figure 1-8, lets you perform typical project management tasks. You can view the contents of your project in outline view, search for project items in the detail view, perform a projectwide find, and view status for the files under source control in your project.

The project page contains the Groups & Files list, which shows the contents of your project in outline view; a text editor pane, which lets you edit source files right in the project window; and a tabbed view, which lets you switch between several panes, each of which provides an interface for a common project management task. These panes are:

• Detail. This pane includes the detail view, which lets you view additional information about project items selected in the Group & Files list or quickly filter project items. The detail view is described in The Detail View.

• Project Find. This pane lets you perform projectwide searches and view search results. The interface is the same as that provided by the Project Find window in other layouts.

• SCM Results. This pane opens a dedicated view displaying only those project items under source control and their status. It is similar to what you see in the SCM window with other layouts.

• Build. This pane provides an interface for common build tasks. It lets you see the progress of your build, view errors and warnings, and see the console log.

Other Windows in the All-In-One Layout

The all-in-one layout is designed to let you perform project management tasks in the project window; it does, however, include a few additional windows, listed in Table 1-3. These windows let you view content already available from the project window in a separate window, should you choose to do so.