How to avoid Xcode gratuitous edits to storyboard files?

When I navigate to one of my xib files, Xcode marks the file as touched. Undo and revert have no effect. Saving seems to do no harm, but the glitch causes me frequent additional git work.

Has anyone else seen this or have an idea about something in my MainWindow.xib that would cause it?

Edit in 2019 - still happening!

Solution 1:

Apple says it's a known issue:

This is a follow up to Bug ID# 9847336. After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering. This issue has been filed in our bug database under the original Bug ID# 9056156. The original bug number being used to track this duplicate issue can be found in the State column, in this format: Duplicate/OrigBug#.

Solution 2:

After attempting many different solutions to get around this extremely annoying bug, I've found one method that works (it is certainly not a "fix", but a workaround).

Lock controllers when you're done with them.

Select a view controller in a storyboard, open the Identity inspector, and at the bottom in the Document section, you'll see a Lock dropdown. Select "All Properties" from the lock drop down.

If you do this for all of the controllers giving you issues (or just all of the controllers in general, even), you'll notice when you open the storyboard, Xcode will still modify the frames of various elements, but then immediately undo the changes.

This then leads to the development cycle being:

Unlock a view controller
Perform any necessary changes
Lock the view controller
Commit

Locking also works on a view-by-view case if that suits your needs better.

The bug has been around for quite some time now and it doesn't appear to be getting fixed any time soon, so unfortunately this will have to suffice for now.

Solution 3:

I personally feel that knowing that it's a known bug doesn't exactly fix the issue. Here's what I figured out so far and how to keep them from coming up.

NOTE: This is for a storyboard with AutoLayout enabled. I haven't yet figured it out yet for manual storyboards.

Below is an example of a button.

<button opaque="NO" contentMode="scaleToFill" contentHorizontalAlignment="center" contentVerticalAlignment="center" buttonType="roundedRect" lineBreakMode="middleTruncation" translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints="NO" id="Ebd-ny-Ill">
    <rect key="frame" x="97" y="5" width="135" height="30"/>
    <color key="backgroundColor" white="0.94557291669999999" alpha="1" colorSpace="calibratedWhite"/>
    <constraints>
        <constraint firstAttribute="width" constant="86" id="bXV-mS-ksp">
            <variation key="heightClass=regular" constant="135"/>
        </constraint>
    </constraints>
    <fontDescription key="fontDescription" type="system" pointSize="13"/>
    <state key="normal" title="See Full Menu">
        <color key="titleShadowColor" white="0.5" alpha="1" colorSpace="calibratedWhite"/>
    </state>
    <variation key="default">
        <mask key="constraints">
            <exclude reference="bXV-mS-ksp"/>
        </mask>
    </variation>
    <variation key="heightClass=regular" misplaced="YES">
        <rect key="frame" x="97" y="5" width="135" height="28"/>
        <mask key="constraints">
            <include reference="bXV-mS-ksp"/>
        </mask>
    </variation>
    <connections>
        <action selector="showMenu:" destination="eQk-yf-uDh" eventType="touchUpInside" id="xOP-Se-FXQ"/>
    </connections>
</button>

If you take a look, you'll see that the button has an element called <rect/> This defines the size and position of the UI item. If you look below, you'll also see an element called <variation/> that describes the change in position based on the size class. In order to fix the position for this, we have to use the following steps:

Take a look at the warning that shows up in Xcode. Take note of what needs to be changed for that UI element.
Open the storyboard in an external (text) editor.
Find the UI element in the storyboard.
Change the value to match what the warning is suggesting in both <rect/> and <variation/>.
Save the file in the external editor.
Go back to Xcode. Let it re-calculate all the constraints.
Accept the warning for the UI element that pops up again.
If you go back to the external editor, you'll notice that the <variation/> element is gone.