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Development

Branches

We always try to ensure support with the currently released major version of Thunderbird. Where a new version is close to release, we try to support that as well.

Each major release of conversations typically has a release branch for that release (e.g. 3.1+). However, all changes should be landed on the master branch, and we may then decide to back-port them to the current release branch.

Building

  1. Clone the repository
  2. Run npm ci
  3. Run npm run build

You will need to do the last step every time you change something.

Running in Thunderbird

Note: At the moment when making changes, especially to the modules, it is best to load the add-on via temporary mode, and restart Thunderbird which each change.

  1. Start Thunderbird
  2. Go to the three-bar menu -> Tools -> Developer Tools -> Debug Add-ons
  3. Select Load Temporary Add-on
  4. Navigate to the dist directory and select any file there.

Debugging in Thunderbird

If you go into the preferences for Conversations (found under Add-ons), you can turn on "Debugging" to enable output.

This can be viewed in the Error Console, available under the three-bar menu -> Tools -> Developer Tools. Note, you may need to click the cog in the top-right corner, and enable "Show Content Messages" for the messages to show up.

The Developer Toolbox, found in the same location, is also very useful for debugging.

Development in the Browser

Some thunderbird-conversations components can be developed fully in the browser. To build these components do

$ npm run dev

and then browse to http://localhost:8126 and select a browser-compatible component file. For example, http://localhost:8126/options/options.html

npm run dev will copy/compile all source files to the build-dev-html; it continues to watch files for changes and will automatically recopy/recompile files that change.

Missing Thunderbird APIs

The browser lacks some of Thunderbird's APIs. These are mocked in addon/content/esmodules/thunderbirdCompat.mjs. All components may import from thunderbirdCompat.mjs, which will use native APIs if available, otherwise fall back to mocked APIs.

Module Importing

thunderbird-conversations uses native ESM module importing (e.g. import { x } from "y.js").

Testing

thunderbird-conversations has linting tests and node tests. To run all tests, do

$ npm test

To run just the node tests, do

$ npm run test:node

Tests are stored in test directories. Because native ESM modules are used while tests are preformed on Node.js (which defaults to CJS modules), some care must be taken when importing. Please see existing tests for details.