Creating a new project based on an existing project (Project Reuse)

I have a project A. This produces a product that's working and already submitted to the app store etc. Now, I'd like to create a new project, let's call it project B, and I want B to be based on A. Obviously B will add more UI and behavior on top of A.

After doing some research, the only option seems to be using cross-project referencing, because I'd like to reuse Project A's XIBs, images etc in Project B. Am I correct in assuming that cross-project referencing should work in that scenario?

Well I'm having some serious problems in getting this thing working. I'd like to achieve project level reuse. In Java or in .NET this wouldn't even be 开发者_StackOverflowa consideration, the technology allows that. Because iPhone doesn't support frameworks, I think the developers are pushed towards more primitive approaches like code duplication.

So, how can I tackle this problem. How can I create my Project B, based on Project A (including XIBs, images, etc)?

Thanks,

If A and B are so similar perhaps you could consider simply creating a new build target; this would give you a single project with target A and target B. Both targets would have access to any of the resources in the project.

If you have a fair bit of shared code then you can create a static library; iOS doesn't support dynamic linking to user-generated libraries, but it supports static linking just fine. This would make the cross-project dependencies useful, because you could have project B reference library A from project A and build it as a dependency.

I did this same thing at one point:

I copied and pasted the entire app and then had two separate apps that I could work on individually.

Contrary to popular opinion, it is possible to create iOS frameworks.

Maybe you could use a scm tool like Git or Piston (http://piston.rubyforge.org) and 'clone' the code. Do something like:

#add original project to git
cd /your/base/project/code
git init
git add . #Stages all files to check-in index
git commit -m 'Your commit message here'

Then

#clone the original project into a new one
cd /your/new/project/directory
git clone /your/base/project/code
git checkout -b aNewWorkingBranchName #create a new working branch to modify
#modify code to your <3's content, use git pull/push/merge/rebase/diff as required to track/update original project

This should let you develop the 'new' project independently, while allowing you to pull in changes when required. Piston allows 'vendor' branching against both Git or Subversion repositories, tying your new code to a particular remote revision. Have a look at its documentation.