Chat Core

Chat Core is the code for instant messaging that is used by Thunderbird. It provides a number of functions and capabilities, including:

• ​Communications protocols - IRC, Matrix, XMPP (and XMPP-based protocols)

• ​Message styles​

• Account configuration

• ​Contacts storage​

• Message logging

• ​Emoticon (smileys) handling​

The Chat Core code lives in the chat/ directory of comm-central.

​Chat Core Protocols​

The Chat Core code used by Thunderbird has some abstractions to deal with the differences between protocols (e.g. IRC vs. XMPP).

​Contacts​

Contacts are at the heart of instant messaging, and thus the Chat Core has a way to abstract to a "person" (represented by an imIContact instance), which might connect to multiple networks, etc.

​Keyboard shortcuts​

This is a list of the available keyboard shortcuts with brief descriptions of what they do.

​Message Styles​

Chat Core uses a message style system based on HTML, JS and CSS that is very similar to the one created for Adium. If you plan to create a message style, reading the Adium documentation on the topic may be helpful -- see this tutorial and this reference sheet.

​Notifications​

This is a page for documenting the notifications in Thunderbird. This is likely out of date. Notifications are grouped by interface you need to attach the observer to.