I am trying to learn and build my own version of mozilla with customizations. But I have no idea where to start and how to proceed. Can someone enlighten me in the following aspects:
1.Where to clone the latest open source code for mozilla
2.Where to learn the browser architecture and file structure(For linux/Ubuntu) So that I can customize the codes and add my own custom
addons.
3.How to debug and build the browser for Linux.
I heard its purely HTML,CSS and javascript. I have a low level expertise in all of this but no idea where to put together all of these. Please enlighten me with any resources. Basically I need a kickstart. Googling didn't gives me any such basic tutorials. I hope someone here would have tried these things before :) Any help is much appreciated.
There's a very handy guide on how to build Mozilla Firefox on MDN. Here's an outline of the steps:
Install the build prerequisite for Linux as described here - wget -q https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/raw-file/default/python/mozboot/bin/bootstrap.py -O bootstrap.py && python bootstrap.py
Clone the repository locally using mercurial - hg clone https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central
Change the current working directory to mozilla-central and then issue the ./mach build command. This will produce a vanilla version of Firefox, unbranded (aka developer build).
Once building is complete, you can run your copy using ./mach build or package it using ./mach package.
In order to customize your build, you need to both change the code and the building options. The latter can be done by creating a .mozconfig file in the mozilla-central directory and adding the desired build options there.
Where to learn the browser architecture and file structure(For
linux/Ubuntu) So that I can customize the codes and add my own custom
addons.
To understand a bit more about the structure of the Firefox source code, you can have a look at this nice overview. Basically, each top directory represents a component of the browser (e.g. dom, browser, toolkit, ...). Depending on what you need, you have to change the code in the related directory. When you're lost and trying to find what to change, DXR can come to the rescue: it's the official Mozilla code search engine.
You mentioned addons: I'm not sure what's your objective, but if you just need to develop an addon, then you don't really need to build Firefox from scratch. There's a lot of documentation about how to create addons, if needed.
How to debug and build the browser for Linux.
The first part of this answers explains how to build. In order to debug, once you've built Firefox, simply run it with the command ./mach run --debugger. This will allow you to debug the C++ core of Firefox. However, for most of the front end code (which lives in browser/*), that's not needed: you can simply run Firefox and use the Browser Toolbox.
Related
For a university project, I am trying to find a not so cumbersome way to effectively modify certain applications from the official Debian repository, such as eog. I want to clarify that I am unfamiliar with Linux and GTK. My idea was to be able to work comfortably in terms of finding variable and function definitions, trying step by step debugging while getting used to gtk+ and the application's source code. I tried to understand the code while working from the terminal, but in my opinion, it was a pain i* t** a**.
So far, I managed to install the application's build dependencies with
sudo apt build-dep eog
and I received the source-code with
apt-get source eog
After I installed eclipse, I tried to get gtk+ running with the minimum example from the gtk+ reference manual. I found a very useful easy explanation here. It's the answer from Wed, 04 November 2015 12:51.No problem so far. So in theory, I should be able to write GTK+ applications in Eclipse. But when I am trying to make a new project and include eog's .src and .h files, I am running into a mass of unresolved inclusions, missing header files, undefined references etc...
So I wanted to ask: Did anybody work on similar tasks and can provide some help? Or: Does anyone have a better idea maybe?
If anybody should come across this ever again: I found an alternative solution: When you download the source-files of eog, you will come across the meson-build system. Eclipse supports C meson-build projects. I just copied all downloaded source files into the meson-build project in eclipse in could compile it right away.
This question is pretty short and self explanatory. I'm wondering how I can run my Chrome extension in NW.js.
I know you can run an app in NW.js and I think you can run extensions as well?
I can't find much on the topic. Back in 2013 the way to do it seemed to be:
nw [path to manifest.json] --load-extension
Any ideas are appreciated!
Yes you can.
First off, download the extension you want. For this example I'll be using this debugging tool, which adds an additional tab in the dev tools window.
Inside your NW.js package.json file, ensure you have an entry called chromium-args.
Ensure its value contains --enable-extensions --load-extension=relative_path_to_extension_manifest.
My package.json looks like this:
After restarting the application, the extension shows up as expected:
Something I'll add is that the full Chrome API might not be available to you. I couldn't find info about what NW.js supports, but Electron definitely does not support the entire API, so this might have similar restrictions.
I also noticed you mention in the comments that you need to assign a hotkey of sorts. I'd need to know what you were trying to do, but essentially you have the option of either using a browser mechanism such as addEventListener('keydown', myHandler) or using the NW.js API depending on your exact needs.
to gain more experience coding and support good projects, I recently got into open source projects and Github. After looking for a project I would like to work on, I found Soundnode (https://github.com/Soundnode/soundnode-app). The project uses NW.js, Node.js and Angular.js.
The question is very fundamental: How do I run the NW.js desktop app from the given files?
I was able to compile the app once, using the bash command open -n -a nwjs --args "/Users/example/path/app". But how do I compile the changes? After changing the index.html file, which is the start for the application, I have to terminate the NW.js app and start it up again (otherwise nothing will happen) and then it opens again the same, unchanged, original app (I changed some html text to see if would load the changed index.html).
Could anyone give me a quick guide how to work with this? What I want to change and everything else I will try to figure out on my own. Just need somebody to give me a head start :)
Best Regards, bbrinx - eager to learn.
nwjs application works next ways:
direct load web files from FS or web
archive files to zip package.nw
Check nwjs manual and docs: http://docs.nwjs.io/en/latest/ and https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki
Easiest way to compile your app is to use Web2Exe. It can compile for Win, Mac, Linux.
You can use browser tools for developing/debugging your application. Set toolbar option in true in window section in package.json file to see browser elements in your app.
I am getting into a position where I have to use other people code for projects, for example openTLD. I want to change some of the code to give it more functionality and use it in a diffrent way. What I have found is that many people have packaged their files in such a way that you are supposed to use
cmake
and then
make
and sometimes after that
make install
I don't want to install the software on my system. What I am looking to do is get these peoples code to a point where I can add to it in Eclipse or even just using Nano and then compile it.
At what point is the code in a workable/usable state. Can I use it after doing cmake or do I need to also call make? Is my thinking correct that it would be better to edit the code after calling cmake as opposed to before? I am not going to want my finished code to be cross platform supported, it will only be on Linux. Is it easer to learn cmake and edit the code befor running cmake as opposed to not learning cmake and using the code afterwards, if that is possible?
You question is a little open ended.
Looking at the opentld project, there is a binary and a library available for use. If you are interested in using the binary in your code, you need to download the executables(Linux executables are not posted). If you are planning to use the library, you have two options. Either you use the pre-built library or build it during your build process. You would include the header files in your custom application and link with the library.
If you add more details, probably others can pitch in with new answers or refine the older ones.
I have node.js installed on my mac. However I am not able to find the the source code.
The 'node' binary file is located /usr/local/bin however since its binary, I can not view it.
For example I want to see internal of console.log function.
On joyent github I can see the code but I want see it when I am offline via some editor like webstorm.
https://github.com/joyent/node/tree/master/lib
Can someone please help.
Thanks
Locally you have Node.js installed. To make your life easier, Node.js developers have already compiled Source into runnable Application.
Because you downloaded already compiled Node.js (that is OK, and sensible), you need to also download source-code if you want to access it offline.
Downloading source-code is just as easy, you can grab the latest code available at the same location as you specified: https://github.com/joyent/node. Look for "Download ZIP" button on the bottom right.
In case of webstorm this link will help - http://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm/webhelp/node-js.html - see "Configuring Node core module sources"