This just came up on twitter so I thought I’d mention it with a few more characters available: holding down the option key whilst performing an action that will open/show a view in the editor will put that view into the Assistant editor. Examples:
- option + click on a file in the Project Navigator
- option + select the “Open” button in the File Open dialog
- option + select the “Open” button in the Open Quickly dialog (Cmd-shift+O to get this dialog).
- option + cmd + click on any clickable symbol in source view (method, class, file name, instance var name, most type names, etc)
- option + click on the .h file listed in the documentation pop-over (option click on a symbol in editor to get this).
- option + click on a file listed in Search navigator, Breakpoints navigator, Log navigator, etc.
- option + select a file you navigated to in the jump bar of the main editor.
and so on. You get the idea. Very nice Xcode 4 feature.
OOOOH, bonus tip(s)!
- You can have more than one assistant editor. The “+” at the top right corner of the Assistant editor adds another.
- when you use the option + action feature above, add a shift key for real magic – direct where you want the item to open, from current main editor to existing Assistant editor, to a new Assistant editor, to a new window. This is made available via a small little navigation pop-up HUD style window like this:
Note that you can navigate around in this pop-up HUD with the arrow keys, and command+left/right arrow to move between the windows. very nice!
Also note that if you are in the assistant editor when you do the option+click it’ll open the target in the main editor (in Xcode 5 anyway).