About Xcode Gestures and Keyboard Shortcuts

You can perform many Xcode operations and commands with gestures or keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts are established through key bindings, which you can modify in the Key Bindings Preferences pane.

At a Glance

Using gestures and keyboard shortcuts can simplify and enhance your experience using Xcode. Some gestures and many shortcuts are configurable, allowing you to customize Xcode to your personal preferences.

Multi-Touch Gesture Highlights

Besides the common Multi-Touch gestures, three are particularly applicable within Xcode:

File Navigation Is Configurable

In the General preferences pane, Xcode provides navigation pop-up menus that help you to customize what happens when you navigate to and select a file in the project navigator or jump bar.

For simple navigation (clicking or choosing a file), two choices are available:

For optional navigation (Option-clicking or Option-choosing a file), four choices are available:

For double-click navigation (double-clicking a file in the project navigator), two choices are available:

For Option-Shift navigation (Option-Shift-click or Option-Shift-choose a file), Xcode displays a graphical navigation chooser showing the current layout. The chooser prompts you to open the file in any open editor pane in any window and tab, or to open the file in a new editor pane, window, or tab.

How to Use This Document

The rest of this document lists keyboard shortcuts available to you while using Xcode.

The tables use the following symbols to represent the modifier keys used in conjunction with a primary key to form a shortcut (these symbols are the same ones displayed in Xcode menus):

This document consists of three sections, each with tables of commands and shortcuts presented in a particular order:

  1. Menu Command Shortcuts (By Menu)

  2. Text Commands (By Type)

  3. Other System and Application Shortcuts