Switching from TextMate to XCode to work on the upcoming HipChat iPhone app has been a little painful. TextMate has some incredibly helpful features that I feel very unproductive without. Luckily some of them can be enabled or emulated. Here’s what we’ve found:

Go to File (Command-T)

TextMate's Go to File popup - so awesome!

The Go to File popup is probably TextMate’s most beloved feature. After using it for a while it seems amazing that its not part of every IDE out there. XCode’s “Open quickly” (Command-Shift-D) doesn’t cut it because it doesn’t do partial matching on the filename.

There are two options (both paid tools) for adding this functionality to XCode:

1. PeepOpen — $12, beta software, great potential but not actively maintained
2. Code Pilot — $30, more mature and full of other nice features

If you want to bind either tool to Command-T you’ll need to unbind XCode’s default key binding for the “Show Fonts” dialog first. To do that, open your XCode preferences and clear out option shown here.

Key Bindings

The “Delete line” (Control-K) and “Duplicate line” (Control-Shift-D) shortcuts can be added system wide by placing the following in ~/Library/KeyBindings/PBKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "^$K" = (
        "selectLine:",
        "cut:"
    );
    "^$D" = (
        "selectLine:",
        "copy:",
        "moveToEndOfLine:",
        "insertNewline:",
        "paste:"
    );
}

Full details and other options are available in this Stack Overflow post.

Themes

TextMate's Twilight theme in XCode

Using the same theme in all your IDEs can make it a lot easier to jump between them seamlessly. Here’s a tool you can use to convert your existing TextMate theme to work in XCode: XThemes.

There’s also a downloadable version of the Twilight theme for XCode here.

Tabs

Unfortunately there’s no way to get a tab-based display in XCode, so you’ll have to get good at switching between files using your Command-T replacement or via one of the suggestions here.

We hope these tips can make you a little more productive in XCode. If you’re looking for more make sure you check out this Stack Overflow thread. Oh and keep an eye out for the HipChat iPhone app.