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Further reading: Read more about the keyboard shortcuts in my previous blog post.
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Have you used Powerpoint, Pages, Keynote or Word?
Each of these apps helps you create media rich content, and that’s exactly what Xcode does. It’s an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that organizes all your code, interface files, and image resources.
Xcode is the tool that you will use to create your iPhone and iPad apps. Along with Xcode you will use the iOS Simulator to test your first iPhone app on your Mac computer.
Learning how to use Xcode is your first goal. You don’t need to know how to do everything, but you should become familiar with the interface and the common buttons and panels.
After downloading Xcode following the previous Swift 1 - Download Xcode and start your first iPhone app tutorial, you are ready to open up Xcode.
You will use Xcode to organize, create, and debug your iPhone apps. It provides a staging ground for you to design and test your code and resource files.
You can open Xcode by clicking on it in your Applications folder, or by searching with Spotlight (Command + Spacebar) in the top right corner.
Xcode 6 has a new look for the icon
You can create a new Xcode project from the Welcome to Xcode screen by clicking on the Create a new Xcode project button.
Start your first iPhone app from the Xcode welcome screen.
In the menu bar click on File > New > Project…
The menu bar is the easiest place to create a new file or Xcode project
The easiest place to start is with the existing project templates that Apple provides in Xcode. Your first app will be a single screen. To get started on the top left corner of the dialog select iOS > Applications > Single View Application
Create a Single View Application
When you create a new Xcode project you’ll have to pick a few settings. If this is your first iPhone app, these settings aren’t super important. You can change any of these settings later on, or on your next Xcode project.
During the learning process, you’re going to create a lot of Xcode projects. Think of each project as a separate learning experience, start a new one when ever you want to try something out.
Note: Core Data is important if your app is going to maintain a lot of local data about users or information. However, simple calculator style apps probably won’t need it.
Setup your Xcode project options
The last step is to save your project folder on your Mac. I recommend that you create a Projects folder on your Desktop.
Navigate to your Desktop > Click New Folder > Type Projects > Create
You’ll create a lot of small Xcode project folders. Keeping them in one place will help you organize your work.
Create Git repository: If this is your first Xcode project, leave option unchecked. This option is for version control (git) and it’s used to keep different versions of your code. It’s an important part of software development. To learn more, visit GitHub.com
Save your Xcode project in a folder on your Desktop
When you first open Xcode you will see a lot of panels and the project settings in the center. The area on the left will show code, image, and user interface files.
In the center of Xcode you’ll find the project settings. There is a button in the top left corner which shows and hides an inner panel, and there are tabs along the top.
The project settings contains information like the supported orientations (i.e. portrait or landscape or both). There are also build settings, which you can ignore for now.
The first screen of a new Xcode project
The buttons on the top right corner of show and hide the various panels in Xcode. Here’s what Xcode looks like with all of the panels open.
Along the top of each panel there are additional tab bar items, which will change the contents of a panel.
You will need to hide panels on a small monitor, like on the Macbook Air. If you want to keep everything open, get an external monitor or an iMac.
I love my
There are 4 main panels in Xcode
You can run your first iPhone app right out of the box. Press the play button in the top left corner of the Xcode toolbar.
The Play and Stop buttons look like music playback buttons
When you run the app it should work and you’ll see a message in the center of Xcode. It should say Build Succeeded. If you didn’t do something correct it might say Build Failed.
Success
Something's wrong
You will become much more proficient with Xcode if you learn some of the Keyboard shortcuts. Try to incorporate one or two of the top 14 keyboard shortcuts for Xcode into your workflow.
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“Absolutely fantastic. It’s about time there was a high quality class available online to learn about iPhone app development. Definitely would recommend!”
Update 9/25/14: Download the PDF version of the 14 Xcode keyboard shortcuts
Update 9/18/14: I added reader keyboard shortcut suggestions below (thanks!)
There are many keyboard shortcuts in Xcode 6 that can make yourself a more efficient programmer. They can help you quickly navigate around your code files to find and fix bugs, or to add new features to your apps.
When you’re in the zone, you want to be able to access the code files quickly, or the adjust Xcode’s panels to fit your small laptop screen.
The following keyboard shortcuts for Xcode 6 are the best ones to learn first. You will probably use them every day after you learn them.
Quickly view all your code, images, and user interface files.
The Project Navigator is your central hub for all code, interface, and image files
When you’re short on screen space, you’ll want to close anything that gets in the way. The happens a lot if you use the Assistant Editor (tuxedo) or when you design the user interface and connect it to code.
Show and hide the Navigator Panel
The Utilities Panel is primarily used when you’re editing your user interface files. If you are only writing code, you can hide it.
Show and hide the Utilities Panel
A quick way to open the Assistant Editor (Tuxedo button top right) is to Option click on a file you want to open side by side with the currently opened file.
Show multiple code or interface files with the Assistant Editor
When you are editing code, adding new code, or trying to fix a bug, searching is the fastest way to find something. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of lines of code you can find all occurrences of a variable, or jump to a specific line of text.
Find all the times you mentioned a variable or method name with the project search. You can match based on case, or ignore upper and lower case letters.
You can also replace all occurrences of a variable name with a new variable name.
Search for text or symbols in your Xcode project
Jump to a line of code within your current code file. If you have hundreds or thousands of lines of code, you can quickly narrow down where you need to insert code to support a new app feature.
Jump bar allows quick access to methods or variables within a code file
If you prefer to only use the keyboard and not the mouse, you’re going to enjoy Open Quickly. It let’s you just type and jump to a method definition or a specific code file.
Open a file quickly or jump to specific method using Open Quickly
You can type the first letter of each word, which allows you to quickly switch to a file or find a particular line of code.
Example, in ViewController.Swift press Command + Shift + O and then type vDL. The first result will be the function with the name viewDidLoad()
Type less and search more with using starting letters for method names: i.e. vDL for viewDidLoad
If you are writing Objective-C, C++, or using Open Source code written in either language, you might need to lookup existing code.
You can quickly switch between two related code files, like the header and implementation files in Objective-C using this Control + Command + Up Arrow shortcut.
If you’re writing code in Swift, you won’t need to worry about this shortcut, since Swift uses a single code file.
To try out your new app you have to run it, and occasionally Xcode doesn’t feel well, so you may have to clean it up.
These shortcuts will keep you writing code without stopping to use the mouse as much.
When I write code, I routinely use this command to make sure the app is running bug free. The more often you test your app the better, since you can find and fix bugs early, before they become big problems.
Run your first iPhone app - Press Play!
Occasionally Xcode will freeze, or something in your app becomes unresponsive or unpredictable. When that happens you’ll first want to clean and then re-run the Xcode project.
If that still doesn’t fix the problem, close Xcode and re-open it again.
Try to run the app, and if that doesn’t work, you need to see if there’s an error message that you can Google for more help.
You shouldn’t have to do this too often, since it’ll make building your app slower. It removes all the intermediary files and recreates them which takes more time to complete.
Clean up Xcode when it fails to work
Checking to make sure the code you write is in working order is something you’ll want to do often.
Even though Xcode checks it shortly after writing, it can sometimes be delayed, or give false errors. Building your app project allows you to make sure it’s in working order before you go to code the next feature.
You don’t always have to run the app, if you are making minor changes, and that’s where building can help you do a quick check, so that you can get back to adding the next line of code.
Build your code to make sure you don't have any errors - quickly double check your work
Learning how to help yourself is equally important. If you haven't already taken a look at the Xcode documentation, use these shortcuts to lookup related code reference.
Read or skim some of the reference guides to get better acquainted with the code that Apple provides, which you can use to make more robust iPhone apps.
After you install all the documentation with Xcode, which it should do in the background after installing it. You can search the documentation offline, which is great when you’re traveling and you’re trying to figure out how to add a new screen or feature to your app.
Open the Documentation and Reference and search for a keyword that you’ve seen in code. You should be able to find some additional resources and sample projects through the Xcode documentation.
Find out how to use code with Documentation and reference guides
Inline help can make it easier to learn what a class or piece of code is actually doing. There’s a lot of code that’s already written, which you can leverage with the help of Quick Help.
Hold Option and Left-click on a variable, class, or method name to get more details. You can quickly jump to the documentation, if you click on the reference link in the bottom of the popup.
Pro Tip: Jump directly to the reference guide by double-clicking the left mouse button while holding Option over a class name.
Get Quick Help to reference while you write code
Share what hotkeys make you faster or more effective.
Reader Tips
“One of my new favorites I learned just recently and use it often is Command + Shift + J, which reveals the file you currently have open in the project navigator. I spent my days in a very large codebase, so this is a very fast way to jump around.”
“I’m a big fan of CTRL + 1 which opens the “Show Related Items” popup. If you have the cursor in any method and hit CTRL + 1 you can easily access all the callers and callees of the current method via this popup. I am constantly navigating up through the callers of a method to see how it’s used.”
“Cmd + . to stop the iOS Simulator is generally pretty handy as well.”
“One that isn’t in the article that I use all the time is Command + Option + Shift + Left-click a file. This presents you with a little popover and you can say where you want it opened in, an assistant editor, a tab, a window, etc.”
“Or if you really want to get serious about developing stuff get AppCode! http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/”
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