I can't get SDL 1.2 to run in Xcode 5

Question

Up until recently, I've been using an eight year old iMac running OS X 10.6, but I just bought a brand new six core Mac Pro with OS X 10.10, and I've been trying to get my old SDL 1.2 programs to run.
I installed Xcode 5 on my new computer (I had read several bad reviews about Xcode 6). I tried opening my old Xcode docs and they wouldn't compile, which I figured might happen, so I went back to the same tutorial video that I used to set up SDL 1.2 on my old computer: http://youtu.be/d3TPsUAO3L4
And I tried to create a test project just to see if I could get the SDL window to open, but it still wouldn't compile. I got this long list of errors. These are a few of them:
/SDL1-2_SetUp/SDLMain.m:50:12: Cast of C pointer type 'CFDictionaryRef' (aka 'const struct __CFDictionary *') to Objective-C pointer type 'const NSDictionary *' requires a bridged cast
/SDL1-2_SetUp/SDLMain.m:166:16: 'release' is unavailable: not available in automatic reference counting mode
/SDL1-2_SetUp/SDLMain.m:166:16: ARC forbids explicit message send of 'release'
/SDL1-2_SetUp/SDLMain.m:167:15: 'release' is unavailable: not available in automatic reference counting mode
/SDL1-2_SetUp/SDLMain.m:167:15: ARC forbids explicit message send of 'release'
/SDL1-2_SetUp/SDLMain.m:182:15: 'release' is unavailable: not available in automatic reference counting mode
/SDL1-2_SetUp/SDLMain.m:182:15: ARC forbids explicit message send of 'release'
Anyway, I don't really understand what this all means, but I didn't get these errors with my SDL projects on my old computer, so I'm wondering if this is because SDL 1.2 is so old it won't run on a current OS? I spent so much time on these programs and I'd really like to be able to run them again, but I don't have the knowhow to update all my code for SDL 2.0. If anyone has any ideas on how to get SDL 1.2 to run in Xcode 5, I'd be so grateful!  And keep in mind that I'm still fairly new to coding (as you've probably guessed), so please try to give me the preschool version!  Thank you.

Answer 1

The problem is not with the Xcode project folder hierarchy. Your problem is a flaw in the Mac version of SDL 1.2. When you add image files to an Xcode project, Xcode places them in the Resources folder of your application bundle. But the Mac version of SDL 1.2 sets the working directory to the directory containing the application bundle so your game can't find the image files.
There are two ways to solve the problem. The manual way is to go into your game's app bundle and move the image files from the Resources folder to the directory containing the app bundle. Select your app, right-click, and choose Show Package Contents to access your game's app bundle. The better way is to change the working directory to the app bundle's Resources folder. To change the working directory, open the SDLMain.m file and modify the setupWorkingDirectory: method. The following code sets the working directory to the app bundle's Resources folder:
NSString *resourcePath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] resourcePath];
[[NSFileManager defaultManager] changeCurrentDirectoryPath:resourcePath];
SDL 2 fixes a lot of annoyances with setting up SDL on OS X. You should look into it.