NIB Files and Versioning: Using Branches

Question

Is there a good way to use NIB (or XIB) files when working with branches?

When I try to do this, most of the time merging the branches does not work. Auto-generated identifiers change very often and everywhere, which provokes conflicts. Changes in XIB are not taken into account by humans, so manual merging also does not work.

How do you deal with this problem? Is there some non-obvious technique, or are you avoiding branches containing Cocoa UI elements? Should one completely exchange / replace XIB files with another name, if they are changed in a branch, as a workaround?

Answer 1

I have not yet seen a solution that I am satisfied with. Short-lived branches and concentrated tips containing a minimum number of objects help to avoid conflicts, but this is not a complete solution. The best I can offer is to try to ensure a clear separation of the problems in your nib content so that unrelated changes do not edit the same file. As a result, I load several views through UINib, but did not find that this is a problem, and this makes it easy to reuse views in the application.