Real World Mozilla Source Code Reading Lab

Dive into Mozilla > Dive into Mozilla Day 3 > Source Code Reading Lab

Overview

This lab is designed to give you first-hand experience searching and reading Mozilla source code. This includes using on-line source indexing tools. You will also have an opportunity to better explore and understand how certain aspects of the browser work.

In this exercise you will take one or more common top-level actions in the browser and attempt to trace them through the code to see where things live and how they work. You are not expected to understand everything you read; however, you should have be able to get a general sense of the flow of things through XUL, JavaScript, C++, etc.

Instructions

Use a combination of the following (i.e., try all of them) in order to do your searches.

• http://lxr.mozilla.org
• http://mxr.mozilla.org or http://mxr-test.landfill.bugzilla.org/
• http://hera.senecac.on.ca:43080/source/

Use IRC to find other people interested in working on the topics listed below, and collaborate there in order to build a picture of how the feature works in code:

• Go > Back (ALT+Left Arrow)
• View > Reload (CTRL+R)
• Right-click an Image > View Image
• Edit > Find in this Page...
• Bookmarks > Bookmark This Page
• Tools > Clear Private Data
• File > Close Tab
• Stop Button

You may pick another feature to examine.

You will be asked to discuss your findings at the end of the lab.