Switching from Project Builder to Xcode - General Questions
Eric Raas
I've been exploring Xcode since receiving my Panther CD's from Apple on
Friday. While there are certainly tons of cool features and a lot of
documentation, I've had a hard time finding answers to some specific
questions I'd think would be relevant for a lot of people who will be
transitioning from Project Builder to Xcode.
1) Should/can .pbproj files be converted to .xcode files? Xcode is of
course able to use .pbproj files from Project Builder files. However
when a new project is created the extension used is .xcode. I wonder if
some xcode features will not be available for projects using the .pbproj
representation?
2) The release notes document a procedure for converting Project
Builder targets to Xcode Native targets. Is there any reason to keep
the old targets in the project after conversion? Can the Xcode Native
targets be built so they run under older versions of OSX?
3) Will Xcode-Native targets derived from source and nib files that are
free of any Panther-specific API calls run under Jaguar?
4) What happened to the "Info.plist" editor that was in Project Builder?
For some reason my application's Help Book is no longer displayed under
Panther (after building as converted Native Xcode targets)...
5) What happened to the "Help Indexer" that some versions of
documentation advised using under pre-Panther versions of OSX? This
would create a file called "Whatever Help.idx" following drag of the
Help Book Folder for application "Whatever" onto the indexer icon.
Michael Ash
Eric Raas <f...@bar.net> wrote:
> 1) Should/can .pbproj files be converted to .xcode files? Xcode is of
> course able to use .pbproj files from Project Builder files. However
> when a new project is created the extension used is .xcode. I wonder if
> some xcode features will not be available for projects using the .pbproj
> representation?
I'm not aware of any difference between .pbproj and .xcode. I would bet
that the only actual difference is the name. But I don't really know.
> 2) The release notes document a procedure for converting Project
> Builder targets to Xcode Native targets. Is there any reason to keep
> the old targets in the project after conversion?
The only reason you might want to keep the old target is so that you can
delete the new target and then open the file with project builder. Not a
big reason.... Or if you're paranoid and afraid something will go wrong
with the new target, of course.
> Can the Xcode Native
> targets be built so they run under older versions of OSX?
>
> 3) Will Xcode-Native targets derived from source and nib files that are
> free of any Panther-specific API calls run under Jaguar?
There's an entire section in the documentation about using Xcode on
Panther to build apps that work on previous OS versions. Short story;
you make sure you install the appropriate SDK(s) from your dev tools
CDs, then you tell your project to use that SDK.
> 4) What happened to the "Info.plist" editor that was in Project Builder?
> For some reason my application's Help Book is no longer displayed under
> Panther (after building as converted Native Xcode targets)...
Native targets have the Info.plist as a separate file in your project,
instead of generating it on the fly. There's no built-in editor that
I've seen, it just opens up as a text file. But in the preferences, you
can tell Xcode to open .plist files in the Property List Editor, and
then you're set.
[5 snipped, don't know.]
Eric Raas
Thanks for the very helpful answers - as for number 5 I found the
"Apple Help Indexing Tool" - it is under
/Developer/Documentation/Apple Help/ where it always was - there used
to be a link in /Developer/Applications/ that does not seem to be
preserved in Panther.
My Help Books would not run under Panther with the old idx file - I
had to re-index them.
ER