Open Radar

 
I see that in Xcode 3.2, if you do a Get Info for the project, you can specify an Organization Name.  The default value is "__MyCompanyName__".


18-Dec-2008 11:07 AM Andrew Lee:
This is almost exactly what I posted recently on xcode-users regarding the fact that Xcode looks in Address Book for the value of __MyCompanyName__:

* There should be an Xcode-wide default setting for the value that is used for __MyCompanyName__.

* You should be able to tell what that default setting is by looking in Xcode's preferences, because that's the first place you're going to look -- not in the Xcode 3.1 release notes.

* It's fine to have "whatever is in Address Book" as a default.  I find this a little strange, since Xcode is not a lifestyle application like Mail or iCal, but I don't have a strong objection.

* If "whatever is in Address Book" is the default, there should be a button in Xcode that takes you to Address Book, or some such UI, so you can conveniently edit the value.

* You should have the option to use something else as the default, because you may want to identify with a different organization for whatever purposes that Address Book uses that field for (what are those purposes, anyway?) -- including not wanting an organization name in Address Book at all.

* You should be able to specify a different organization, overriding the default, on a per-project basis, because you may have personal projects, or you may be a contractor working on projects for different organizations.

I seem to recall there are other placeholders that can be put into project file templates, not just organization name.  I suspect it would not be appropriate to have these be fields in Address Book.  Therefore I think there should be a preference tab in Xcode dedicated to these placeholders.  This would make clear what the complete list is and what reasonable default values are for each, and it would make it convenient for developers to set their values.

This information should not be buried in oral tradition.  The fact that this has been asked about time and time again on the developer lists should really be a glaring clue that this functionality should be exposed in UI. A developer shouldn't have to search list archives to find out that the information is in a paragraph of the Xcode 3.1 release notes.