Extending Xcode
A lot of software enables the user to extend it in order to enhance productivity and customize her work environment. An excellent example of this kind of software is TextMate. But I’m not going to talk about TextMate today, but instead another very popular development tool for the Mac OS – Apple Xcode.
Xcode have had plug-in support during most of it’s life time so far, but the means for creating new plugins has been (and is still in many ways) something only Apple has. Documentation is extremely sparse and most of that which is available is outdated. If you bring up the “New project…” (CMD+SHIFT+N) you will find “AppleScript Xcode Plug-in” inside the “Standard Apple Plug-ins” category. However great this might sound, it restricts you to only fiddle with AppleScript, which in my point of view is just a pain in the ass. (AppleScript, that is. One might call it a necessary evil)
Writing a “real” plugin (using Cocoa, AppKit aso.) should be as easy as writing a normal Application, since a xcplugin is just a simple bundle like any other OS X bundle. What is different though, is that you probably want to fiddle with Xcode itself. (i.e. change the color of some text based on some rules, which for instance a language extension would do) Doing so requires knowledge (i.e. headers) about how to poke around. Unfortunately Apple does not expose these interfaces. Damien Bobillot maintains a (somewhat outdated) document called Xcode’s Plugin Interface in which he provides a package of private headers one must have, in order to use the DevToolCore framework.
