Xcode coffee shortcuts

I’ve just finished preparing my coffee… ♨!!
It’s always a happy and warm moment, but this time it feels special… My blog is finally back to life and I am excited to use this space to share some nerdy stuff.

Grab your ☕️… prepare your fingers… I promise they won’t get cold.

In this post, I’ll share some basic built-in Xcode shortcuts that can speed up development on a daily basis - just like coffee!

Well, Xcode is not the most loved tool around, that’s for sure! There are many things we wish were better, I’ll just drop here “lack of incremental updates”.. yes, pretty sad! On the other hand, knowing its corners and a few tricks can make a huge difference on how satisfying is working with it.

Make sure you have Xcode open…

Drink and try it out

Action Shortcut Description
Open scheme selector ⌃0 Can be used to both view/select schemes + to choose a build device
Open/change the Navigator tab ⌘1…9 Selects a Navigator tab such as the issue navigator (5)
Show/hide Inspectors ⌘⌥0 Fold/unfold the right panel (Inspectors)
Show/hide Navigator ⌘0 Fold/unfold the left panel (Navigator)
Show/hide debug area ⌘⇧Y Fold/unfold the debug area in the bottom of Xcode
Navigate recent files ⌘⌃←[→] Navigate back and forward the recent files
Jump to counterpart ⌘^↑[↓] Switch between a file and its corresponding files. Honestly, it rarely works well, but Daniel Martin has found a way of making it very nicier for MVVM projects
Show selected file on project navigator ⌘⇧J Open the left panel (Navigator) with the current file selected
Open Quickly ⌘⇧o Global quick search component that can filter anything, file name, functions, properties..
Open Quickly - Another editor ⌥↵ The file gets opened in an additional editor
Open Quickly - Choose where to open ⌥⇧↵ Select the exact place to open the file by using either keyboard directionals or mouse/trackpad
Add documentation ⌥⌘/ Generate documentation template. Nice for when designing API’s!
Find ⌘F Open a search bar in the current context (editor, console)
Replace ⌥⌘F Enable find e replace mode in the current context (editor, console)
Find in project ⌘⇧F Useful to swiftly perform a project search. Type the text and be happy!
Replace in project ⌥⌘⇧F Useful to swiftly perform a project find and replace search

What else?

I believe that learning combined with practicing are key ingredients towards growth and to achieve goals.
Coffee is kind of the same, right? Griding some fancy grains, putting up the exact temperature, the correct weight, using the best techniques and experience will make a high-quality app… oh, I mean, coffee!

Being more productive and improving your Xcode workflow are tasks in which shortcuts along with more advanced techniques can help on.

The shortcuts listed here are straightforward and ready to use without any further Xcode customization, so moving forward, when it starts to get automatic, I encourage you to explore custom Xcode’s key bindings, behaviors and why not advanced debugging.

Ping me on Twitter, reach out, comment with the shortcuts you use each and every-day.. let’s share! By the way, if you have coffee and don’t mind sharing…

See you around and thanks for reading 😉.