Favorite changes in Xcode Tools 2.3

  • Info.plist preprocessing has been improved: you can now specify build settings using a "$(BUILD_SETTING)"-style syntax (fixes this complaint; although with the -traditional switch it’s not such a big deal anymore anyway).
  • atos now works with Universal Binaries: thanks to the -arch switch.
  • Better tracking of breakpoints across dependent projects: at last you can see all the breakpoints in the application in a single window even when they are spread across multiple dependent projects (such as framework projects).
  • Cleaning dependencies is now optional: handy for when you just want to flush out a single target’s resources (for example) and not have to rebuild a long chain of dependencies. You can also elect to skip cleaning precompiled headers.
  • Option-double-click now works on symbols names in documentation windows: making it much, much faster to zoom around the documentation.
  • Clicking on symbols in the API listing now requires only a single click: thus fixing a long-standing regression in which you had to click twice (once to switch documents and then again to scroll the document to the appropriate anchor).
  • And finally… Everything seems much faster… or am I just imagining it? A full Synergy Advance clean and build is still taking about six and a half minutes on the G5 (only 5 minutes on the iMac) although admittedly I have added quite a bit of code since the last time I did that test; but movement in the editor and around the user interface definitely feels faster to me.

These are all very real improvements that have a significant impact on my work flow (either eliminating blocker bugs, allowing me to remove kludges and workarounds, or simple helping me to work faster/better). Great work, Apple!