Paul Lynch's Pages

There are a few simple key combinations that help a lot when using Xcode – I don’t mean just the emacs key bindings (which are worth a post all on their own), but autocomplete and lookups.  I suffer badly from forgetting these keystrokes when I switch between Xcode and Eclipse (and TextMate and all sorts of other tools).

First the autocomplete key stroke, which everyone knows:

• Tab – enters the highlighted completion; but then:
• Esc – pops up a selector for all possible completions for the current context.

Next the lookups:

• Alt- double click – looks up the current word in the Documentation window;
• Cmd-double click – looks up the definition (often in a system .h file) for the current word.

Something important I almost forgot: the right click menu inside the Xcode editor brings up a useful list of tools, including all the above options.

That’s all; short and sweet.