Source control

Source control is widely used by large teams and individual developers alike. It provides an extremely useful way to track changes to code and revert back to stable builds of a project with version control. Teams of developers may work separately on individual components by creating and managing a copy of the code (called a branch) without overwriting another team member's code. The change will later be merged while simultaneously tracking all the changes made to the code base.

Source control is not a new feature of Xcode 5; however, Apple has decided to provide easier access to its functionality by creating a top-level menu item. Selecting it will display a drop-down menu with one-click access to most of the source control commands, such as commit, push, and pull. Hovering over Working Copies will open a new submenu that allows you to switch between branches, create a new branch, or merge branches. The following screenshot shows this submenu:

In addition to local source control on your computer, Xcode 5 also supports the ability to connect directly to remote repositories hosted on popular sites, such as GitHub. Open preferences and navigate to the Accounts tab once again. This time, after clicking on the + button, select Add Repository. Once you have entered the proper repository address, Xcode 5 will connect the repository, thus allowing you to access it remotely.