The Wizard of Xcode

wox is a ruby gem that adds useful rake tasks in order to have happier iOS devs.

Install

First set up bundler in your xcode app directory (unless you already have!)

$ cd ~/code/angry_turds
$ gem install bundler
$ bundle init

Then edit your Gemfile to look something like this:

# Gemfile
source :rubygems
gem "wox"

Then run the bundle command:

$ bundle

Now, create a Rakefile (unless you already have one!):

# Rakefile
require 'bundler'
Bundler.require

Wox::Tasks.create :info_plist => 'Resources/Info.plist' do
  build :debug, :configuration => 'Debug'
end

Now run rake -T to show you the available rake commands and you should see something like this:

$ rake -T
rake build:debug          # Build angry_turds 0.1 with Debug configuration
rake info:configurations  # List available configurations
rake info:sdks            # List available sdks
$ rake build:debug
Building angry_turds 0.3 configuration:Debug
Success. Results in build/build-Debug.log

If you get an error you might need to check the path of the info plist file. We use that to get the version number of the app.

Moar stuff!

Ok so there's a few more things you can do, like creating ipa files and publishing to TestFlight. That looks like this:

# Rakefile
Wox::Tasks.create :info_plist => 'Resources/Info.plist', :sdk => 'iphoneos', :configuration => 'Release' do
  build :debug, :configuration => 'Debug'

  build :release, :developer_certificate => 'iPhone Developer: Dangerous Dave (9GZ84DL0DZ)' do
    ipa :app_store, :provisioning_profile => 'App Store'
    ipa :adhoc, :provisioning_profile => 'Team Provisioning Profile' do
      testflight :publish, :api_token => 'nphsZ6nVXMl0brDEsevLY0wRfU6iP0NLaQH3nqoh8jG',
                           :team_token => 'Qfom2HnGGJnXrUVnOKAxKAmpNO3wdQ9panhtqcA',
                           :notes => proc { File.read("CHANGELOG") },
                           :distribution_lists => %w[Internal QA],
                           :notify => true

    end
  end
end

There's a few things to notice here. Some tasks need to be nested inside other tasks. This allows them to share environment variables. For example :configuration => 'Release' is on the outer most scope at the top there. That sets the default for all the tasks inside. Any task can override the default like the first build :debug task does. The build :release task sets a developer certificate here which is then shared by the two inner ipa tasks.

rake -T again:

$ rake -T
rake build:debug          # Build angry_turds 0.1 with Debug configuration
rake build:release        # Build angry_turds 0.1 with Release configuration
rake info:configurations  # List available configurations
rake info:sdks            # List available sdks
rake ipa:adhoc            # Creates build/angry_turds-0.1-release-adhoc.ipa
rake ipa:app_store        # Creates build/angry_turds-0.1-release-app_store.ipa
rake testflight:publish   # Publishes build/angry_turds-0.1-release-adhoc.ipa to testflight

You'll need to sign up to TestFlight to get your API key and team token which you can plug in here.

Also check your development certificate and provisioning profile from inside Xcode.

Available options

The following options can be set at any level and will be inherited by child tasks.

• :info_plist Default: 'Resources/Info.plist'
• :version Default: 'CFBundleVersion' from info plist file
• :target Default: first target in xcode
• :sdk Default: 'iphoneos'
• :build_dir Default: 'build'
• :configuration Default: 'Release'
• :project_name Default: project name from xcode
• :app_file Default: project_name
• :ipa_name Default: 'project_name-version-configuration-ipa_name'

Wrapping up

This is very much a WIP! So please log any bugs or feedback you might have and feel free to fork and go nuts!