Professional Xcode® 3

Chapter 4. The Project

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Creating a project and defining where it's stored

• Choosing the right project template

• Juggling multiple projects

• Configuring project-specific properties

Now that you can navigate around the Xcode interface and customize its view, it's time to learn how projects are created, stored, opened, and closed.

Every project has two essential parts: the project document and the project folder. The project document, Simple.xcodeproj in Figure 4-1, contains all of the structure, references, layout, settings, preferences, and other attributes that define the project.

Figure 4-1. FIGURE 4-1

The folder that contains the project document is the project folder, in this case the Simple folder. This is the root location for the project. The project document and project folder usually have the same name, but that's not a requirement, and a project folder can contain multiple project documents.

CREATING A NEW PROJECT

You create a new, empty project using the File

Figure 4-2. FIGURE 4-2

"Empty" is a bit of a misnomer. The New Project Assistant creates a new project using one of the many project templates that are built into Xcode. The project it creates will be far from ...