AppCode Quick Start Guide

Appearance

Go to AppCode | Preferences | Appearance and Behavior | Appearance to select the UI theme: IntelliJ Light, macOS Light, Darcula, or High contrast.

Editor



Go to AppCode | Preferences | Editor to adjust the editor’s behavior. A lot of options are available here, such as drag'n'rop enabling, scrolling configuration, color configuration for each available languages, tabs and code folding settings, code completion behavior, and postfix templates. For more information on the editor settings, see Editor basics.

Code style

Code style settings can be defined for each language under AppCode | Preferences | Editor | Code Style. With settings, you can have your code automatically formatted as you type, without any additional actions. You can also create and save your own coding style schemes.

Keymap

AppCode uses the keyboard-centric approach, meaning that nearly all actions possible in the IDE are mapped to keyboard shortcuts.

AppCode supplies you with a default keymap. Select Keymap Reference from the main menu to see the whole list of predefined shortcuts.

However, you can always change it in AppCode | Preferences | Appearance and Behavior | Keymap. There are various predefined keymaps, such as Xcode, Emacs, Visual Studio, Eclipse, or NetBeans, and you can also create your own keymap based on an existing one.

Code completion

There are two types of code completion in AppCode: basic ⌃ Space and smart ⌃ ⇧ Space. Basic completion works as you type and completes any symbol instantly. Smart type-matching completion analyzes the context you’re currently working in and offers more accurate suggestions based on that analysis. It filters the list of functions and variables to match the expression type.

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You can also use code completion to replace method signatures. With the caret placed at the method name, press ⌃ Space, select a method from the list, and press Tab:

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Code generation

With AppCode, you can easily generate code for common constructs and frequently used elements, such us loops, conditions, enumerations, initializers, properties, methods' overrides, and more. When you create new files, AppCode also generates some initial content for them.

Refactoring

Refactorings help improve your code without adding new functionality. With refactorings, you can make your code cleaner and easier to read and maintain.

Select Refactor from the main menu or call the Refactor This popup ⌃ ⌥ ⇧ T to get the list of refactorings available at the current location. Different sets of refactorings are available for Swift and Objective-C.

Code inspections

AppCode constantly tracks the quality of your code and detects potential errors and problems, such as unused code, unresolved methods, non-localized strings, or invalid parameters in a function. For this purpose, AppCode provides a set of code inspections.

When AppCode detects any errors or warinings in your code, the inspections widget appears in the top right corner of the editor. On clicking the widget, the Problems tool window opens. From there you can easily navigate to the code that caused the issues and fix them by clicking ⌥ ⏎:

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Moreover, the detected issues are marked with color indicators in the scrollbar area. Hover over this indicator to see the error text and click it to navigate to the code that caused the error:

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You can also run inspections manually to find potential problems in your project and fix them at once. To do so, choose Code | Inspect Code from the main menu.

You can see the whole list of inspection, change their severity level, and enable/disable them in AppCode | Preferences | Editor | Inspections.

Intention actions

Apart from the quick-fixes provided by code inspections, AppCode suggests intention actions for code fragments that can be altered and optimized. For example, you can remove explicit types from variable declarations in Swift:

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You can see the whole list of intention actions and enable/disable them in AppCode | Preferences | Editor | Intentions.

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Source code navigation

You can also navigate through the structure of the currently open file from the Structure popup ⌃ F12 or Structure tool window ⌥ 7.

Quick definition and documentation

Quick definition ⌃ ⇧ I helps you see the contents of a class or method without jumping to it.

To see the list of parameters that a method can take, press ⌃ P.

To view documentation for a symbol at the caret, press ⌃ Q. Note that the symbol must be supplied with documentation comments created in accordance with AppleDoc/HeaderDoc/Doxygen markup, or with documentation from an SDK.

Also, AppCode shows external documentation for Foundation Framework Classes. To open external documentation, press ⇧ F1.

Timeline navigation

Remembering all your activity in the project, AppCode can easily navigate you to the recent files ⌃ E or recently changed files ⌥ ⇧ C.

To go through the history of changes, use back/forward navigation ⌃ ⌥ ←⌃ ⌥ → and/or go to last edit location ⌃ ⇧ ⌫.

Running

To run an app, select a run/debug configuration and a device or simulator from the run/debug configuration selector in the toolbar and click or press ⇧ F10.

Run/debug configuration is a named run/debug setup that includes target, executable, arguments to pass to the app, and other options.

Run/debug configurations in AppCode are the equivalents of the Xcode schemes, and they are kept synced with them.

AppCode creates a default run/debug configuration for each target and names it after your project. You can also add your own configurations based on available templates. Select Run | Edit Configurations from the main menu to see all available configurations, edit them, and add new ones.

Debugging

Debugging starts with placing breakpoints at which program execution will be suspended so that you can explore the program data. Click the gutter left to the line where you want the breakpoint to appear.

To start a debugging session, click or press ⇧ F9. The Debug tool window opens.

Go through the program execution using the stepping actions: step over , step into , step out , and others.

You can set variable values, evaluate expressions, add watches, step into disassembled code, attach to local and remote processes, and more. Refer to the Debugging section to learn more about debugging features in AppCode and read our Debugging in AppCode tutorial.

Testing

AppCode supports Catch, Boost.Test, Google Test, and XCTest-based testing frameworks (including Quick and Kiwi) out of the box.

To create a test, right-click a node in the Project tool window, select File | New | File from Xcode template, and AppCode will generate a standard XCTest test from a template. You can also create your own template for a test or for any other file under Preferences | Editor | File and Code Templates.

Create a run/debug configuration for your test, choose it from the run/debug configuration selector, and click or press ⇧ F10.

You can run several tests at once. To do so, create a compound run/debug configuration that includes your test configurations.

Test results are displayed in the dedicated view of the Run tool window. Here you can navigate to problems, see the test running statistics, and re-run failing tests.

Run your unit tests with coverage to see how much of your code is being executed during the tests.

Read the Unit testing in AppCode tutorial to learn how to create unit tests in AppCode.

VCS

AppCode integrates with the following version control systems: Git (or GitHub), Mercurial, Perforce, and Subversion.

To specify credentials and any settings specific to a particular VCS, go to Preferences | Version Control. From the VCS menu, you can commit and push changes, update projects, and more. From the Version Control tool window ⌥ 9, it's possible to manage change lists.

Some basic commands can be easily accessed from the toolbar.

Read the Getting started with Git in AppCode tutorial to get familiar with the basic Git operations in AppCode.

Local History

In addition to traditional version control, you can use Local History. With Local History, AppCode automatically tracks changes you make to the source code, the results of refactoring, and so on. Local History is always enabled. To view it for a file or a folder, select VCS | Local History | Show History. Here you can review the changes, revert them, or create a patch.