Using LXR
Mozilla relies on Linux Cross-Reference (or LXR for short) in order to navigate, link to, and generally communicate with one another about the source tree. You can access Mozilla's LXR at http://lxr.mozilla.org. As a developer working on Mozilla projects, learning to use lxr effectively is essential.
In this exercise you will take one or more common top-level actions 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.
List of Topics to Investigate
Pick one of the activities from the list below (do more than 1 if you finish early), or add your own if you have one applicable to your project.
Create a link out of the title and document what you find with lxr links and description in that page.
- Go > Back (ALT+Left Arrow)
- View > Reload (CTRL+R)
- View > Reload (CTRL+R) (#2)
- Right-click an Image > View Image
- Edit > Find in this Page...
- Bookmarks > Bookmark This Page
- Tools > Clear Private Data
- Find any files used by the PNG decoder and their relationship
- File -> close tab
- Stop Button
- Figuring out the tab context menu
Resources
In addition to using lxr you might also wish to try a similar tool: the Mozilla Cross Reference (mxr). Both will give you the same basic features, but mxr is more feature rich.
