Comments on: The other way to install the Mac Reference Library

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:01:22 +0000

Thanks Peter, this was really helpful and explained why Xcode was still ‘Getting’ every time I launched it..

By: Dody Suria Wijaya

Dody Suria Wijaya — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:21:49 +0000

Peter, thanks. Internet was unreliable as well on my place and your tips help awfully a lot. For those who have fast and reliable internet connection, you do not have to use this guide (e.g. Dave M).

By: Dan Morrow

Dan Morrow — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:41:40 +0000

This is interesting.

However, I got to your page by looking for something else. We have Mac OS X Server, and we host a Software Update Server. What’s nice about this is that everyone in the company gets their software updates from our local machine, instead of Apple’s site. The server just downloads the updates, as they come in.

It would be awesome if you know of a way to get the Software Update Server to host XCode documentation updates. I work with about 10 engineers, and those updates eat up a lot of external bandwidth.

By: Alessandro

Alessandro — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:51:11 +0000

And if you’re behing a proxy, the thirs solution is your only option.
I, too, wish I could disable QuickHelp.

By: Peter Hosey

Peter Hosey — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:09:22 +0000

Dave M.: It’s not preinstalled locally; to have it locally, you must download it, as I say in the first paragraph of the post.

And your connection is much faster than mine (768/128 kbps DSL). You can download the Core Reference in about 15 minutes. Depending on what you did after opening the Preferences, I can easily imagine you not seeing the download.

By: Dave M.

Dave M. — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:36:38 +0000

Peter, I have never had problems download the documentation ever. Actually, Xcode 3.2 is way better than previous versions since it only downloads one doc at a time. The older versions would attempt to download all the docs that needed updating all at once. I would have to go into the window and pause all the other docs, then do them one at a time.

I have an average cable broadband connection that does 5Mbps down, so I don’t consider connection all that fast.

I guess my main confusion here is that it sounds like the post is saying that the documentation is not available locally at all. When it clearly is.

By: Jon H

Jon H — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:37:18 +0000

I just wish the doc window didn’t open to the useless Xcode Quick Start.

By: Dale Gillard

Dale Gillard — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:47:59 +0000

Thanks Peter. I’ve found the doc downloading very unreliable. The Activity window eventually shows it starts downloading, then stops, and won’t restart. The UI doesn’t indicate why either.

By: Peter Hosey

Peter Hosey — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:58:37 +0000

If you visited the Preferences, that’s why. Xcode starts downloading the two most important docsets immediately if you open the Documentation pane of the Preferences and don’t already have them, and maybe you have enough bandwidth that you didn’t notice, or maybe you did it at night and then went to bed and left your computer on overnight.

By: Dave M.

Dave M. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:10:07 +0000

I’m a little confused here. I just checked my installation of Xcode 3.2 and not only do I have local copies of the documentation, but I have the ability to check for and install updates automatically (via a checkbox in the settings page).

Not all the documentation is downloaded by default, there are several older manuals/docsets that you have to click a button to get Xcode to download for the first time. After that however, it keeps the documents up-to-date just fine.

I don’t have to implement any of the “third solution” steps you showed.

Am I missing something here?