So I finally got around to uploading a new Xcode howto video. This time it is an example of how to write a custom QuickLook plug-in using Seapine’s SoloBug application.

You’ll also notice that this time I’m using Viddler instead of YouTube. Through my fighting with encoding/uploading I’ve found that Viddler has a much higher quality level when it comes to being able to actually read the text on a screencast. It also doesn’t have the “Your video must 10 minutes or shorter because if it is longer than that you simply must be uploading copyrighted content” restriction like YouTube.

That last bit is important when you go all the way through making a video only to notice that it runs around fifteen minutes. D’oh.

Based on the fabulous response I got from my last Xcode 3 demo I decided to do another one. No seriously, great reviews. Just look at what Jeff had to say:

“This sort of shameless pandering and karma whoring is what will serve you so well in your evangelist role. I only wish I could claim first post (it myself). It seems that with the writer’s strike people must be hard up looking for good entertainment.”

I had to tighten up his note, you know space limitations and such. It still pretty much reads the same. Mostly.

This one shows how the new Interface Builder heads up display makes it a lot easier to connect up outlets.

I was first introduced to Xcode 3 at WWDC 06 after being repeatedly told, “This is under NDA, don’t talk about it or we’ll detonate the RFID chip that was implanted in your brain at the hotel last night and believe us you seriously don’t want that to happen.”

Well, Leopard shipped (in case you missed the coverage) and along with it Xcode 3 without an NDA. I’ve wanted to sit down and do a little review of it for a while but quite frankly I haven’t had the time. Plus there was that whole NDA/RFID/exploding head thing. Just this morning inspiration struck and kicked me into gear in the form of an email from a friend of mine:

Why I’m not switching teams any time soon…

Read this and watch the videos

I went and read the post and watched the movies and yes I certainly agree it is easier to make the Beep application in Visual Studio. Xcode does many good things and I like it a great deal but it most definitely has a learning curve. A very steep learning curve at that.) This is especially true if you come to it from using things like Visual Studio or the good old console tools like emacs or vi.

One of the things I wondered about with his post though was the Xcode video he was comparing against. That one was done using Xcode 2.x and not the new Xcode 3.0 that shipped with Leopard. To that end I put together a quickie demo showing how to make that same application in Xcode 3 and how a lot of the steps have been streamlined.

The video:

This was my first “real” (I use that term super loosely) application with Xcode 3 and the HUD popups are a huge improvement. At first I found myself looking all around for where to instantiate my controller but it wasn’t until I busted open the docs that I found I had to use the inspector. That too is a big improvement. I’m not sure about the Writing Class… business to create the files, I have a feeling that they really want you to do that definition stuff from Xcode and then have IB3 suck the changes back in. This way was more like IB2 which I am far more familiar with so I decided to just go with what works for now.

Overall it was a fun little experiment, I don’t think I’m quite as passionate about the whole thing as Keith but that probably comes from having done Mac programming in the past and thus not being surprised by the differences from VS. It was actually interesting to read further about him, it looks like we had very similar technological career paths coming from the Linux world and then spreading out from there.

Anyhow, suck up as much video bandwidth as you like. The tab is on YouTube.