thunderbird / thunderbird/developer-docs

Better documentation of editing omni.ja

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Description

Proposal:
Editing the omni.ja file - e.g. just by opening it in 7zip - is a really simple way of trying changes to the Thunderbird JavaScript source without setting up any development environment. That however requires a consecutive launch of Thunderbird using the --purgecaches flag or using the MOZ_PURGE_CACHES environment variable, otherwise cached JS code instead of the custom one is used. This is such a simple way to start with Thunderbird development that I don't really understand why it isn't really documented anywhere official. Therefore I'm proposing that this is documented a bit more prominently.

The same probably goes for Firefox.

The current situation:
There exists https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Start_Hacking which I think should be integrated into and forward to a subpage of https://developer.thunderbird.net/thunderbird-development/getting-started . At one point something similar already existed in MDN, since the wiki page was to a significant extent duplicated by https://web.archive.org/web/20210620190432/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/About_omni.ja_(formerly_omni.jar) which has been removed since then.
None of these sources documents the --purgecaches flag or the MOZ_PURGE_CACHES environment variable. The wiki page even mentions removing jsloader and jssubloader directories which I think is an outdated, discontinued alternative to clear the cache.

Context:
This is a follow-up to https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D185644#6141303 where this knowledge was quite useful.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the Thunderbird:Start Hacking wiki page and the developer.thunderbird.net Thunderbird development getting-started page. Document editing omni.ja, launching with --purgecaches or MOZ_PURGE_CACHES, and clarify the outdated cache-clearing guidance; integrate or forward the wiki content as proposed. Done means the official getting-started path prominently covers this workflow.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
developer-experience, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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