Alternatives for AppCode

AppCode has been sunset and I am wondering if anyone is aware of a suitable replacement (which is probably impossible considering the scope of this IDE). I simply can not go back to Xcode, as a code editor, and it's driving me mad.

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(sorry if its an obvious question) but i'm assuming you are developing ios apps, so is clion + swift plugin is insufficient right?

According to this page the plugin is deprecated as well

wow, i didn't notice that sunsetting of appcode also deprecates swift plugin support... :expressionless:

Why can't you use Xcode? If you are developing on Linux or Windows, the extension for VS Code might be an option.

This is my personal opinion and I understand that everybody has different requirements and preferences, but I have been using IntelliJ IDEs for more than 10years I came to love the features it has.

  • Version Control integration is second to none. I probably will continue using VC and merge tools through IntelliJ community edition.
  • Version control workspaces which restore tabs based on your branches is such a beautiful feature when you have to work on multiple branches from time to time.
  • Being able to use AI tools like coPilot if you want to improve your productivity via plugins.
  • The endless refactoring options Xcode can only dream of. LiveTemplates, ScratchFiles and so on.
  • Advanced code editing features and actually getting indentation right when moving lines, this drives me bananas to wait for code formatting to do something the ide should do. VS Code is probably be able to fill the some blanks here.
  • Being able to order the file structure and being able to create scopes to filter the project is fantastic for very large projects.

I dont have a need for visual programming so all the nib/xib and xml based Xcode features are fluff I dont need. What I am really looking for is an editor which is helpful in writing code, Xcode aint it. Unfortunately I might not have a choice which is sad.

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JetBrains’ IDEs are great, and there are certainly some features not matched by Xcode. But Xcode has also become quite good, especially in the newest version with e.g. the pinning code structures, and I even like the GUI of Xcode better with the easily accessible tools (e.g. the search) on the left (yes, I like using the mouse, too many shortcuts to remember everywhere!). And BTW, Xcode now shows errors “immediately” in all (!) Swift files of the project.

So I guess it is not only that not many people actually bought AppCode/CLion (using CLion with the Swift plugin — and in my opinion the Swift plugin for CLion has never been great), JetBrains certainly judged that there is less and less reason to use AppCode on the Mac. And on Linux and Windows (of course, also on macOS) there is the extension for VS Code.

So try out Xcode again, it might not as bad as you remember.

If you are used to a nice GUI for Git (like a JetBrains IDE), you certainly do not want to start remember the Git commands. And in my opinion, an excellent Git GUI (like e.g. also SmartGit) is much more powerful from a practical standpoint in the normal case. Just see how great it is to just click on the log entries and immediately see what has changed in the according commit inside a great diff view integrated in the tool. (I do not know what Xcode currently can do in this respect. UPDATE: In Xcode, you first have to double click on a commit or click on the file listed in the right explorer for a commit to open the according view, so it is not as immediate as in SmartGit where you can keep the according view open, but also very good. UPDATE 2: What seems to be missing in Xcode is a log view for a certain file (the list of commits, and showing the changes in the file when choosing the commit; SmartGit has it).)

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See the following short videos:

In Xcode, you have to double-click on a commit to see the changes, whereas in SmartGit the according diff view is always open, so you just click once (keeping the view) and the "first" change becomes visible, and you can select another file (keeping the same views).

It does not seem to be such a great difference, but in practice in SmartGit it is so much nicer to the go through the changes.

(In SmartGit you can then also double-click on a file to get a separate large view of the changes in a file for the commit.)

I'm with you on this one. I was very angry/upset by their announcement that they are dropping support for Swift. Maybe it's time for some of us in the Swift community to create a new cross-platform editor with all the features that we love from AppCode. Anyone interested in joining me on this?

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Note that Visual Studio Code with the Swift extension is cross-platform and quite good and people are working on it to make it even better.

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Visual Studio Code running on Linux? Never thought I'd ever see that happen!

Next silly question. Which Visual Studio Code extension is the best, most current, etc.

The first one from the Swift Server Workgroup