Efficient Xcode Interface Shortcut Tips

Introduction A colleague came over to review my code and sighed, "Your screen is completely taken up by navigation bars, toolbars, and the debug area — doesn't that feel cramped?" I fumbled around pressing frantically to adjust things. Then it occurred to me: it would be great to have some way to quickly switch between different modes — for example, maximizing the editor area in editing mode, and automatically showing the debug area in debug mode. Areas and Shortcuts Xcode Interface Areas: - The Toolbar: Where you select views, run the app, and switch between different layout interfaces. - The Navigation Area: Where you navigate your entire project, warnings, errors, etc. - The Editing Area: Where all the magic happens, including the Jump Bar above it. - The Utility Area: Contains inspectors and various libraries. - The Debugging Area: Includes the debug console and variable inspector. Xcode Keyboard Shortcuts: First, the modifier keys: - : Used for navigation and controlling the navigation area. - : Controls things on the right side, such as the and . - : Interacts with the in the editing area. Note: the symbol for is . Combinations with number keys: - : Jump to different sections of the navigation area. - : Show/hide the navigation area. - : Jump between different inspectors. - : Show/hide the utility area. - : Jump between different libraries. - : Jump between different tabs in the . Additional shortcuts: - : Show the standard single-window editor. - : You can probably guess this one — it opens the . - : Show/hide the debug area (). Defining Behaviors Open Behavior preferences via . The left side shows all events, and the right side lists the actions that can be triggered for each event. Running Settings for a single screen: With dual screens, you can move the debug area to the second screen: Custom You can also define custom behaviors, which lets you implement the different mode switching I mentioned at the beginning. The only painful part was trying many keyboard combinations before finding ones that worked. Editing Pressing enters full-screen editing mode. Navigating Pressing exits full-screen editing mode and shows all the toolbars. Give it a try — it's impressively cool! Reference: Supercharging Your Xcode Efficiency Note: the shortcut diagram in the link above contains errors.