View source for Tracking Stop Button

One of most used features on the browser (other then the back button) is the stop button. It stops a page from loading and its really helpful if you are about to load a huge page. This page is created to show how clicking the Stop button calls a Stop() function dowing inside the dark depths of the Firefox core.

== Authors ==

*Mark Paruzel
*Yi (Eric) Shen

== Steps Taken ==

* I started off with the tooltip that is displayed when a user hovers over the Stop button. The tool tip shows the string "Stop loading this page". So I jumped into [http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8.0/ LXR] and started searching for this string.
* I found [http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8.0/source/embedding/tests/wxEmbed/rc/browser.xrc#162 this page] that shows that the tooltip is part of an object called ''browse_stop''. This is all defined inside an XML document that defines the layout of the toolbar.
* Searching for ''browse_stop'', I found a bunch of documents using it. One of the links that jumped out at me was [http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8.0/source/embedding/tests/wxEmbed/BrowserFrame.cpp#212 this one] which displays the javascript that handles the event of someone clicking on the stop button.
* Inside the OnBrowserStop function, there is a line that calls the [http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8.0/source/embedding/tests/wxEmbed/BrowserFrame.cpp#217 Stop() function of an nsCOMPtr object]. So its safe to conclude that the actual code that Stops the rendering of a page is located inside a COM Object.

== Comments ==

It is very hard to actually understand every single technology that Firefox uses but from just searching for a simple thing such as a Stop button, you can easily narrow the specific technologies that are in use by the stop button.