Using openframeworks without XCode

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been using Atom for developing nodejs apps, but a few months ago I’ve decided to migrate to Visual Studio Code, and I must say that I don’t regret this decision. Code is faster, has a tons of extensions and great support for many different languages.

Last but not least, typing code . in terminal in order to open Code in the current directory is really cool. 😁

So when I came back to openframeworks and all its XCode thing I felt a little overwhelmed, as if there were too many things before me and the code that I was writing. XCode is a very powerful IDE, but sometimes you need the comfort of something a little lighter.. which brings us back to the title:

Using openframeworks without XCode

It’s really easier than you may think, since OF supports make files on macOs!

I have to thanks a random sfpc repository I found which documented the process of using Sublime Text instead of XCode (I’ve lost the correct link, it’s somewhere in their github).

Here’s my gist showing how to do it with Visual Studio Code (but really, you should be able to reproduce the steps in most text editors).

This first file is an example of a c_cpp_properties.json file and below it you’ll find all the instructions.