Using NSDockTile for debug info

Often when I’m working on an app or something I end up running several different versions of it in a short period of time. There’s usually some bug that I’m trying to fix and I want to make sure that the bug occurs in the old version and doesn’t occur in the new version.

Sometimes though I get confused which version I’m running. Is the app in the dock the old version, or the new version or something else?

So today I had an idea: Why not put the version number on the dock tile?

Here’s the code to do it:

if (DEBUG) {
  id badgeText = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"D-%@",[[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] valueForKey:@"CFBundleVersion"]];
  [[NSApp dockTile] setBadgeLabel:badgeText];
}

This assumes that you’ve got DEBUG defined somehow and that you have an infoDictionary with the relevant keys and values set.

And here’s what it looks like in the dock:

Regular version on the left, development version on the right.

I’m not sure how useful this will actually be, but it seemed a handy trick for development.

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