Automating repetitive game development tasks

Posted by MrDatabase on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by MrDatabase
Published on 2011-01-29T05:14:33Z Indexed on 2011/01/29 7:34 UTC
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Disclaimer: this is an open-ended and kinda "far out" question

Over the last few years I've made a few iPhone games. I use very common programs like Xcode and Illustrator to make the games.

Lately I've become tired of repeating certain tasks over and over again. Here are some examples:

  • in Xcode: "clean target, build, run" over and over again
  • in Xcode: delete image resources and then import updated image resources (identical names)

I'd like to automate these tasks in Xcode. Any ideas? I've done some automation in Photoshop using the "button mode" thing where you record a macro... that's been very useful.

Here's the kinda wacky or "far out" part of the question: how can this automation be done via voice commands? (perhaps using a Nuance product or something)

Here's an example of what I'd love to do via a few voice commands:

  1. Save artwork from illustrator at a user-specified size (@2x versions as well)
  2. Delete "someArt.png" and "[email protected]" from Xcode
  3. Add the updated versions of someArt.png to Xcode
  4. In Xcode: clean target, build, and run

I know this question probably seems bizarre... but something like this could make certain things substantially easier for game developers.

Edit: wonder if a combination of AppleScript and Nuance might work?

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