Build, run and debug iOS and Mac apps

[luxmentis]

Hi all, I've written tools and an accompanying guide for building apps for Apple platforms in Zed instead of Xcode. There's even support for debugging. I've focused on usability, i.e. avoiding too much per-project setup.

This is the first time it's been publicised, so I'm keen for people to try it out and let me know how it goes, either here or by raising issues on the xcede repo if appropriate (details in the article).

Super pleased to be building apps in Zed.

https://luxmentis.org/blog/ios-and-mac-apps-in-zed/

[alexacz]

I achieved the same result with Makefile :-)
Just copy Makefile to the root dir of your app, configure task.json & debug.json, and you're good to go! Works with both simulators and devices.
Makefile is probably outdated technology, but it allows you to be independent of the IDE. I can write code, build, run, and debug my iOS apps in other IDEs (like Zed, VSCode, NeoVim) or in pipelines.
Below is screenshot with the breakpoint:

[luxmentis]

xcede isn't Zed-specific – you could use it with other IDEs.

How do you go about debugging – do you just do an attach, or have you done something to make launch work?

[BrendanThompson]

This is awesome @luxmentis ! I have been hoping for something at least similar to https://github.com/wojciech-kulik/xcodebuild.nvim in Zed. I mucked around with tasks myself but they are all a little bit gross and didn't work super reliably.

I also use a lot of local packages, which tends to cause lots of problems outside of Xcode 😢.

@alexacz don't suppose you'd be willing to share your Makefile?

[luxmentis]

That plugin is a way more elaborate proposition. Previews! Tests! Pretty nice, assuming it all works.

I'm unlikely to take on a project that big, even if Zed plugins could have UI (which they can't) or I spoke Rust (which I don't; could learn though of course).

I haven't dug into it too far, but I see it uses pymobiledevice3 to talk to devices, which is different to what I've done.

[Hbbb]

This is great! I've been using VSCode to work on apps for a while now but I always tab back to XCode to build/run/debug the app. It's.. fine. I'd love to be able to drop VSCode and do the same in Zed.

Regarding your tool, I followed the blog and xcede's README but I got stuck on setting up the debugger. I don't understand what you mean by this step:

"dap": {
    "Swift": {
        "binary": "/path/to/xcede-dap"
    }
}

Specifically, what is the xcede-dap? Is it the python script? I think this could be explained a bit better.

That all being said, wonderful work and thank you so much for sharing!

[luxmentis]

Hi, glad you're finding it useful. The piece of config you posted should go in Zed's settings (I've made this clearer in the article now).

The article has an explanation about what a DAP is, and what xcede-dap specifically is, in the panel titled "What's going on here?". I've expanded this explanation a bit. (You don't need to know this, but of course it's reasonable to want to.) xcede-dap itself is written in Swift as it happens, although it does use a Python script for some of its work. The source code is available for you to read at your leisure.

Hopefully this is enough to get you debugging, but if not, let me know. Happy to help.