Codebase Overview

A high-level look at the project's architecture and a guide to where to find things.

Overview of Comm Central

The following directories are included in the comm-central repository:

build Miscellaneous files used by the build process.

calendar The calendar component of Thunderbird (formerly known as the Lightning extension).

chat Files for the chat component of Thunderbird. There is also related code in mail/components/im.

The subdirectories are:

• components Various chat features, includes the interfaces that each protocol must implement.

• content User interface files which become chrome://chat/content/….

• locales The user-visible strings, in US English. Files from this directory become chrome://chat/locale/….

• modules JavaScript modules that are specific to chat.

• protocols Various protocol implementations. Each of subdirectory implements a protocol to the interfaces found under components.

• themes Common and platform-specific styling specific to chat. Files from this directory become chrome://chat/skin/….

mail Thunderbird specific source code. It's no coincidence that this folder is laid out a lot like the browser and toolkit directories on mozilla-central. Many of the subdirectories follow the same pattern:

• content User interface files which become chrome://messenger/content/….

• modules Javascript modules which become resource:///modules/….

• test Mochitest and/or XPCShell tests.

The subdirectories are:

• actors Modules which handle communication between processes. See the Firefox documentation for information about actors.

• app Configuration and packaging instructions. Contains all-thunderbird.js, the default preferences.

• base The main mail window and several miscellaneous dialogs. Also, things which are common to many parts of the program.

• branding Icons and imagery.

• components Various Thunderbird features, including:

  • accountcreation The account setup wizard.

  • addrbook The address book user front end. (Not the address book back end, which is in mailnews/addrbook).

  • cloudfile The cloud attachment feature (a.k.a. FileLink).

  • compose Email composition window.

  • extensions WebExtensions schema and implementation.

  • im The chat front end.

  • preferences The preferences tab.

• config Build instructions, including the automation mozconfig files.

• extensions

• installer Packaging and installation instructions.

• locales The user-visible strings, in US English. Files from this directory become chrome://messenger/locale/….

• modules Shared JS modules. Files from this directory become resource:///modules/….

• test The MozMill user interface tests and the code to run that test suite.

• themes Common and platform-specific styling of Thunderbird user interface. Files from this directory become chrome://messenger/skin/….

mailnews Source code specific to the Mail and Newsgroups part of Thunderbird and SeaMonkey.

mozharness Files needed for Thunderbird's test infrastructure.

other-licenses Code that is not under the Mozilla license. See http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/ for more info.

suite SeaMonkey-specific source code. Not used in Thunderbird.

taskcluster Files needed for Thunderbird's build infrastructure.

testing Files needed for Thunderbird's test infrastructure.

third_party Libraries developed elsewhere that are included in Thunderbird