Creating and using your own Xcode file templates

Working on an iOS or macOS project in Xcode you typically create classes with the same structure over and over again.

I use coordinators so I am creating new UIViewControllers, each time referencing RxSwift, having methods for setting up UI, bindings .. most of the time also containing a delegate for the coordinator.

Having to create files with the same structure over and over again manually is a waste of time, a much better solution is creating Xcode file templates for those files.

Xcode file templates

File template location

All the Xcode custom file templates are located in ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Templates/File Templates and grouped into sections by their folder name. If you want Xcode to show a “Custom” section at the bottom of the new file dialog, just create a ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Templates/File Templates/Custom folder.

File template structure

Each file template is a separate folder with a name ending in .xctemplate. If you want to create a simple “Swift Class” file template, you have to create a folder named Swift Class.xctemplate in ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Templates/File Templates/Custom.

Each file template folder should contain at least 3 files:

• TemplateInfo.plist - describing the template
• TemplateIcon.png - icon shown in the Xcode new file dialog
• ___FILEBASENAME___.swift - the actual template file

You are not limited to just 1 template file, you can create more. This can be useful if you want to create a UIViewController together with a XIB or a ViewModel.

Template description

The TemplateInfo.plist file contains basic template description. The important thing is template Kind and the MainTemplateFile. You can also set a default filename with DefaultCompletionName

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Kind</key>
	<string>Xcode.IDEFoundation.TextSubstitutionFileTemplateKind</string>
	<key>Description</key>
	<string>Swift Class</string>
	<key>Summary</key>
	<string>Swift Class</string>
	<key>SortOrder</key>
	<string>30</string>
	<key>AllowedTypes</key>
	<array>
		<string>public.swift-source</string>
	</array>
	<key>DefaultCompletionName</key>
	<string>Class</string>
	<key>MainTemplateFile</key>
	<string>___FILEBASENAME___.swift</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Template file

You can put basically anything into the actual template file. You can use text macros like ___FILENAME___ to reference the filename, ___FILEBASENAMEASIDENTIFIER___ to reference the filename without extension, etc. A full list of text macros you can use is available on the Xcode help website.

My template for a Swift class looks like this

//
//  ___FILENAME___
//  ___PROJECTNAME___
//
//  Created by ___FULLUSERNAME___ on ___DATE___.
//  ___COPYRIGHT___
//

import Foundation

class ___FILEBASENAMEASIDENTIFIER___ {

        init() {

        }
}

If you do not want to start from scratch, take a look at my sample Xcode templates on Github.