Tutorial: cocos2d Xcode Project: Configure Xcode for Cross-Project Referencing
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In March 2009 Clint Harris outlined how to setup cocos2d for iPhone using cross-project references, instead of copying the source code to every project you create. Since that article is completely outdated i decided to retrace the steps needed for version 0.99 of cocos2d engine and the current Xcode version 3.2. I've also condensed it to the necessary steps.
Apple's documentation also describes Xcode cross-project references in a short paragraph. I mention that in case you want to look that up and find that Clint's link does no longer work.
I use the cross-project solution instead of installing and using the cocos2d Xcode project templates because they, too, leave you in a situation where you'll find yourself unable to update the cocos2d engine code at a later time.
Note that the following settings need to be done only once but are required steps for the next lesson.
Shared Build Location
Open Xcode and from the Apple menu select Preferences. Switch to the "Building" tab and set the two radio buttons as in the screenshot. Choose a build folder where you want Xcode to place all build output. It should be an empty directory.
Define cocos2d Source Tree
Still in Preferences, click on the Source Trees tab. Click the + button to add a new setting and name it COCOS2D_SOURCE. As path enter the full path to the folder where you downloaded (pulled) the cocos2d-iphone source code. I'm afraid there's no "Choose..." button for this setting that lets you browse folders so you'll have to enter the path manually. Make sure the path is correct.
We'll refer to that COCOS2D_SOURCE variable a few times later on.
Comments (1)
164 Responses to “Tutorial: cocos2d Xcode Project: Configure Xcode for Cross-Project Referencing”
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I get “cocos2d.h:No such file or directory” when trying to #import “cocos2d.h”
what am I missing?
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ups, the path to the source code was wrong.
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This tutorial is toooo long.
Is there a short version ? I spent two hours on this and as I expected nothing works.
For begininers its not going to work -
Great info! Thanks! However, the script is building the .ipa file before it does the codesign step. Have things changed in Xcode? How do I get the script to run after the codesign step?
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I tried twice to follow your tutorial step by step using cocos2d 0.99.5-rc1, Xcode 3.2.5 and iOS 4.2.1, but I keep having problems when building and running on device.
The weird thing is I have no problem at all running the template on simulator!
To be more clear:
I’m trying to build and run following the final step of “Getting our Project Template to build minimal cocos2d code” section.
Running on simulator works perfectly, running on device (iphone4) crashes after splash screen with this message on console:
“Program received signal: “EXC_BAD_ACCESS”.
warning: Unable to read symbols for /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/4.2.1 (8C148)/Symbols/Developer/usr/lib/libXcodeDebuggerSupport.dylib (file not found).
Previous frame inner to this frame (gdb could not unwind past this frame)”
By stepping with debugger I found the app crashes on line 98 of AppDelegate.m:
“// make the View Controller a child of the main window
[window addSubview: viewController.view];”I see there are little differences from your (great) tutorial and Xcode/cocos2d new templates, mainly for the use of RootViewController, may this crash be related? (I already added RootViewController.* to my template)
Has anyone found a fix to this problem?
Please please please help me, this thing is driving me crazy =/
Thanks










May 10, 2010 15:45
Yes, i keep getting reports of images not shown. I'm not sure what it is. I'll keep an eye on it.