Categories
Xcode

Frequently used keyboard shortcuts I use in/with Xcode

As a mindful exercise I kept track of things I do in Xcode that might not seem obvious to a new user. Maybe all things are known. But who knows maybe there is a little gem in here. I use more shortcuts, but these I use most often by far.

Open Quickly dialog (⌘⇪O) with camel cased names

A lot of people know ‘⌘⇪O’, but not a lot of people are aware of the value of entering lowercase and uppercase input. Casing is significant in the “Open Quickly…” dialog. For example, if you have a class called SomeRandomClassName you can actually open that file by typing SoRaCl.

⌃6 to open the jump bar

Go ahead, try pressing ⌃6 in Xcode with an open Swift file. Now start typing.

Try ⌥ clicking things in the Xcode source editor

Helpful documentation in a pop-up, especially if you add doc comments. (Obviously uni can also display the Quick Help Inspector.

⌘⌥/ to add those doc comments

Having Doc comments on key areas of your interfaces really helps your peers work with the code you write. I like spending some time on my Doc comments to make ⌥-clicking extra useful.

⌘⇪J to display the current file in the Xcode navigator

It’s always easy to quickly jump to the current open file in the navigator to easily see and select related files.

⌥-drag a piece of text in the Xcode code exitor

It takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, this will really save you time in specific editing situation. Try it!

By Jeroen

I’m Jeroen a dutch software developer employed by a large insurance company. Mostly I write about Swift code, CocoaHeadsNL and other related topics.