Why can't I just send my zipped Xcode project folder to a friend, and it works?

Question

I always use one folder on my filesystem for an Xcode project. It contains all project files. When I zip it and send it to a friend, she can't just ipen the xcodeproj file. It opens, but all paths are broken and build fails because all the classes don't find the #include'd files. But when I download i.e. some example projects from apple, these work perfectly. What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE:

I'm doing it like this:

1) I create a project and specify an directory on my desktop

2) In that directory I create an "images" directory and add images to it

3) I pull this images directory out and drag it into the Resources Groups&Files. Xcode asks if I want to copy it to destination folder, I click no. Because it's already there. All other things are set to default.

4) all other things are just created within xcode, and xcode just puts all classes in the Classes directory of my project.

5) when I want to add images, I first put them in the directory of the project, and from there drag them into the Images group in xcode. That's to make sure xcode doesn't mess them up with everything else. Otherwise it would just copy them to the root of my project directory rather than inside the Images directory, which doesn't make sense. In fact, the whole Groups&Files filesystem doesn't make sense at all, it's one big mess. Apple's biggest mistake in Xcode so far. That's why I have to do such stupid things.

Answer 1

We don't really know exactly what you're doing so it's hard to see what you're doing wrong.

Perhaps inspect the xcode project files directly, see if you have hardcoded paths. That's a sure fire problem. Make sure you copy resources into the project instead of referencing them externally, etc.

Answer 2

I expect that you have "search path" build setting set to an absolute path on your machine, rather than a path relative to the project. Best way to tell is to post a portion of the build transcript from the failed build and look at the -I directives. If those paths don't exist on your friend's machine, then they should be changed from absolute paths to paths that start with ${SRCROOT}.

Answer 3

Are you just trying to build on the second machine or are you trying to deploy to a device on the second machine? If you are trying to deploy to a device (iPhone or iPod Touch) then it probably has something to do with Code Signing and Certificates.