Xcode and javascript/php/html development?

Hi--

Look in /Library/Application Support/Apple/Developer Tools. The templates for files are in " File Templates" in that folder. Look at the shell script one for an example you should be able to build on. Make sure you edit the plist file, too. The edits should be obvious, but post back if they're not.

Pay attention to how the directory structure works, too. If you have a folder with the extension " .pbfiletemplate", that's your template, but if it doesn't have that extension, the file name will be a bold header (like BSD or WebObjects) in the New File assistant.

The C++ template is in " Project Templates" in that same area, in the " Project Templates" folder. I'd suggest making backups of any files you change in there before you fool around with them. Also, once you make changes and get the templates like you like them, back those up, too, in case Apple decides to overwrite those files in a future update.

charlie

Hi--

Here's the full text of the C++ template file.cpp in that directory. Note that there's no " .cpp" at the end.

<pre class="command">/*
* «FILENAME»
* «PROJECTNAME»
*
* Created by «FULLUSERNAME» on «DATE».
* Copyright «YEAR» «ORGANIZATIONNAME». All rights reserved.
*
*/

#include "«FILEBASENAME».h"</pre>

(Is there anyway to copy and paste the path of a
file? I had to type that by hand.)

Since I spend a lot of my time in the Terminal with a shell, I just use pwd (print working directory) at the prompt. There might be other ways, but I don't know them...

I'll post back later with more instructions on how to set up a template, including what to look for in the plist file.

charlie

Wait a minute. I don't have a file.cpp in that
directory (..../Project Templates/Command Line
Utility/C++ Tool).

Okay, we're talking about two different places. I thought you just wanted to make a Javascript file template and you're poking around in the project templates. I'm not sure what the point of making a project template would be for a Javascript file. There's no real "build" setting, you'd just be using the Xcode text editor. But all your debugging would need to be done with a web browser. So I was talking about looking at the shell script file template that's here:

<pre class="command">/Library/Application Support/Apple/Developer Tools/File Templates/Scripts/Shell Script.pbfiletemplate</pre>That's the template you'd get if you were to choose "New File..." from the "File" menu in Xcode. That's what you'd need to do for a JavaScript file.

For your project templates, it looks like they're laid out a bit differntly. There are three files:

<pre class="command">-rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 3132 Sep 11 22:03 C++Tool.1
drwxrwxr-x 4 root admin 136 Sep 11 22:03 C++Tool.xcodeproj
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 143 Sep 11 22:03 main.cpp</pre>There, main.cpp is the file. On my system, it doesn't have all the extra stuff. This is all there is:

<pre class="command">#include <iostream>

int main (int argc, char * const argv[]) {
// insert code here...
std::cout << "Hello, World!\n";
return 0;
}</pre>It looks like the project name fill-ins are done are done via another file, the C++Tool.1 file. That looks like an mdoc file. I don't know anything about it, but it's just a text file, so you can look at it in any text editor.

Inside the Java Tool folder there is no file named
file.xxx either.

Right, because it's called " JavaTool.java." When you create a new project, Xcode assumes you're starting from scratch, so it makes sense to have a main.cpp file in your project. Or a JavaTool.java one. The file templates, however, are set up differently, because Xcode assumes you either don't want a project file, or you're adding your new file to an already existing project.

I tried adding your comments to main.cpp inside the
Command Line/C++ Tool folder, but when I create a new
project, I have the same problem.

At this point, unless you can puzzle out the C++Tool.1 file, you might be best off to use Pacifist to extract the default template out of your Xcode installer package. It's $20 shareware, but at some point, you'll be glad you've got it if you do a lot of tinkering with your system.

A page with some good information on the project templates, by the way, is at cocoadev. Obviously, it's a bit skewed toward the Cocoa user, but you should be able to get some good info off that page.

charlie

As promised: to create a new JavaScript template, you need to follow these steps:

1. Navigate to this folder:

<pre class="command">/Library/Application Support/Apple/Developer Tools/File Templates/Scripts</pre>

2. Duplicate the Shell Script.pbfiletemplate folder and rename it to JavaScript.pbfiletemplate.

3. Open the folder and rename file.sh to file.js and replace its contents with anything you'd like to appear in every file. If you want to mess around with the macros like «FULLUSERNAME», you'll need to change Xcode's default encoding from the default to UTF-8, I think.

4. Next to your file.js file, there's another file called TemplateInfo.plist. If you double-click it, the Property List Editor should open it. Click on the triangle next to "Root" to reveal your two key/value pairs. The Description value can be anything, but it probably makes sense to change it to " An empty JavaScript script file." The MainTemplateFile key's value should change from " file.sh" to " file.js". Save the plist and exit the editor.

5. Go back to Xcode and choose "New File..." from the "File" menu. Scroll down to the "Scripts" section and choose your new Javascript template. It should just work.

charlie

Hi--

If I save it as a .js file, then the
indenting works. But if I save it as a .html file,
the indenting won't work. I'd like to have the
indenting work on a .html file type. Is that
possible?

Sure. I did a quick Google search and came up with a page that details how to do it for Pascal. So, working from that, I came up with this:

1. Create a new, empty text file. Now, open this file:

<pre class="command">/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DevToolsCore.framework/Versio ns/A/Resources/Built-in languages.pblangspec</pre> Copy out the definition for HTML files:

<pre class="command"> // HTML
{
Identifier = html;
Name = "HTML/XML";
Description = "HTML and XML";
BasedOn = "pbx rootlanguage";
SupportsIndentation = NO;
Indentation = {
};
SyntaxColoring = {
CaseSensitive = NO;
UnicodeSymbols = YES;
MultiLineComment = (
( "<!--", "-->" )
);
/*KeywordDelimeters = ( // not supported yet
( "<"<">" )
);
Character = (
( "&", ";" )
);
};
}</pre>2. On the first line of your new text file, put an open parentheses: "(", then paste in the HTML definition on the next line. Close out the parentheses on the last line: ")".

3. In your new file, change the SupportsIndentation line to " YES" instead of " NO":

<pre class="command">SupportsIndentation = YES;</pre>4. Save your new file as " HTMLOverride.pblangspec" in this directory:

<pre class="command">/Library/Application Support/Apple/Developer Tools/Specifications</pre>5. Quit and restart Xcode, and you should now be able to auto-indent in HTML files...

charlie

I'm curious, why not change the HTML spec's indenting
to YES in the original file? Why override it in
another file?

Well, the main reason is that anything inside /System/Library/..., especially if it's in a Private Framework directory is, by custom, owned by Apple, and theirs to use and abuse as they see fit. So they might overwrite your changes at any time during a software update. I'm not sure about the other location, so it'd still be a good idea to back up that file, but it at least seems safer. You might also be able to set up a folder in your own user's ~/Library/Application Support folder, keeping the same directory structure below that, but I haven't tried that yet to see if it works.

charlie