Xcode iPhone PNG Optimizer Enhancement

This project is an enhacement for Xcodes Compress PNG Files Build Setting and includes Scribd's fork of the AdvanceCOMP utilities as a submodule.

Important: This project directly modifies configuration files that are private to Xcode! Although considerable effort was made to find a way to implement the functionality provided by this project using a different means (i.e., a .xcplugin in ~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Plug-ins/), no other viable way of providing this functionality was found.

Overview

This project modifies the files in /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin to change the Xcode Compress PNG Files setting from a Boolean YES / NO option to a Build Setting with the following options:

Xcode versions supported

The Xcode iPhone PNG Optimizer Enhancement has been tested with the following versions of Xcode:

Installing

To install, run the included install.sh script:

shell% ./install.sh ↵
Warning: In general, this script must be executed as the super user in order to modify the Xcode Plug-In files.
Warning: Consider running this script as 'sudo "./install.sh"' instead.

Installing in to the Xcode Developer Tools at '/Developer', which was determined automatically by the command 'xcode-select'.

Note: You can override this location by setting the environment variable DEVELOPER_DIR if you have multiple versions of the Xcode Developer Tools installed.

Do you want to install in to this directory? (y/n)? y ↵

A backup of     '/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin'
was created at: '/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS_xcplugin_backup_20110621184402_40989.tar.gz'
./install.sh:90: error: Unable to copy '/Users/you/gitRepos/Xcode-OptimizePNG/plugin-src/copypng' to '/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin/Contents/Resources/copypng'.  Aborting.
shell% ▌

This installation failed because the install.sh script requires super-user privliges in order to update certain Xcode files. When re-run using sudo:

Important: sudo will execute the install.sh script with super-user (i.e., root) privileges.

shell% sudo "./install.sh" ↵
Password:  Enter your password, it will not be displayed.
Installing in to the Xcode Developer Tools at '/Developer', which was determined automatically by the command 'xcode-select'.

Note: You can override this location by setting the environment variable DEVELOPER_DIR if you have multiple versions of the Xcode Developer Tools installed.

Do you want to install in to this directory? (y/n)? y ↵

A backup of     '/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin'
was created at: '/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS_xcplugin_backup_20110621185206_41066.tar.gz'

Installation was successful!

Warning: You must exit and restart Xcode before the new 'Compress PNG Files' Build Setting options are available.
shell% ▌ The warning above will only be displayed if Xcode.app is currently running.

If Xcode.app is not running at the time that install.sh is executed, the last warning in the previous example will not be displayed.

Installing in a different version of the Xcode Development Tools

If you have multiple versions of the Xcode Development Tools installed on your system, you can install the Xcode iPhone PNG Optimizer Enhacement in the different Xcode versions using the environment variable DEVELOPER_DIR.

Important: When you set the DEVELOPER_DIR environment variable, the install.sh script will not ask if the directory that DEVELOPER_DIR is set to is really the directory you want to install in to.

shell% setenv DEVELOPER_DIR "/Developer4" ↵
shell% ./install.sh ↵
Warning: In general, this script must be executed as the super user in order to modify the Xcode Plug-In files.
Warning: Consider running this script as 'sudo DEVELOPER_DIR="$DEVELOPER_DIR" "./install.sh"' instead.

Installing in to the Xcode Developer Tools at '/Developer4', which was determined by the environment variable DEVELOPER_DIR.

A backup of     '/Developer4/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/PrivatePlugIns/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin'
was created at: '/Developer4/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/PrivatePlugIns/iPhoneOS_xcplugin_backup_20110621193634_41339.tar.gz'
./install.sh:90: error: Unable to copy '/Users/johne/projects/scribd/xcode/Xcode-OptimizePNG/plugin-src/copypng' to '/Developer4/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/PrivatePlugIns/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin/Contents/Resources/copypng'.  Aborting.
shell% ▌

Like the example without DEVELOPER_DIR, this installation failed because the install.sh script requires super-user privliges in order to update certain Xcode files. When re-run using sudo DEVELOPER_DIR="$DEVELOPER_DIR":

Important: sudo will execute the install.sh script with super-user (i.e., root) privileges.

shell% setenv DEVELOPER_DIR "/Developer4" ↵
shell% sudo DEVELOPER_DIR="$DEVELOPER_DIR" "./install.sh" ↵
Password:  Enter your password, it will not be displayed.
Installing in to the Xcode Developer Tools at '/Developer4', which was determined by the environment variable DEVELOPER_DIR.

A backup of     '/Developer4/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/PrivatePlugIns/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin'
was created at: '/Developer4/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/PrivatePlugIns/iPhoneOS_xcplugin_backup_20110621193734_41355.tar.gz'

Installation was successful!

Warning: You must exit and restart Xcode before the new 'Compress PNG Files' Build Setting options are available.
shell% ▌ The warning above will only be displayed if Xcode.app is currently running.

Trying to install when already installed

The install.sh checks to see if the iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin files it is about to update are identical to the ones in the plugin-src directory. If they are, the install script displays the following:

shell% ./install.sh
The enhanced 'Compress PNG Files' Xcode iPhoneOS Build System Support Plug-In in '/Developer' is up to date.

Note: Super-user privileges are not required if the Xcode iPhone PNG Optimizer Enhancement is already installed.

Errors and Other Problems

The install.sh script does its best to make sure that everything is in order before it begins its work, which includes checking if all the required files and directories exist. Before any changes are made, a backup of the current iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin directory is made using tar, and the name of the .tar backup includes the date and time when the backup was made.

advpngidat not installed

By default, the Xcode iPhone PNG Optimizer Enhancement looks in the projects root directory for bin/advpngidat, and if it can't find the advpngidat command there, it looks for the command in $PATH. If it was unable to find the command in any of these locations, and Compress PNG Files is ≥ Medium, then you will see a warning when you build your project that the advpngidat command was not found.

To fix this, you will need to build the Scribd fork of the AdvanceCOMP utilities, and then install the compiled advpngidat command in either the bin/ directory relative to the root of your projects directory, or in a directory that is included in the $PATH environment variable.

Uninstalling

The install.sh script makes a back up of the iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin directory using tar and stores it in DEVELOPER_DIR/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/.

The name of the .tar backup is iPhoneOS_xcplugin_backup_YearMonthDayHourMinuteSecond_Random.tar.gz.

The install.sh script makes a back up of the iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin directory as follows:

The install.sh script also prints this information:

A backup of     '/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS Build System Support.xcplugin'
was created at: '/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneOS_xcplugin_backup_20110621185206_41066.tar.gz'

To uninstall the Xcode iPhone PNG Optimizer Enhancement, you can use tar to restore the original files:

shell% cd /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/ ↵
shell% sudo tar czf iPhoneOS_xcplugin_backup_20110621185206_41066.tar.gz ↵
Password:  Enter your password, it will not be displayed.
shell% ▌

As before, if Xcode.app is running when you make the changes above, you will need to exit and restart Xcode in order for them to take effect.

Usage

To use the Xcode iPhone PNG Optimizer Enhancement, simply open your the Build Settings for your iPhone project, find the Compress PNG Files Build Setting under Packaging…, and select one of the available options.

Results

The following results are taken from a real-world iPhone application. The amount of additional optimization that is possible will vary for each project based on a number of difficult to quantify factors. The results for each project may differ, sometimes dramatically, from the results below. You are strongly encouraged to verify whether or not a setting ≥ Medium provides any worthwhile benefit for your project.

   ^† bytes.
   ^‡ seconds. Timing done on a MacBook Pro with a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Dual CPU.