Development
How to develop the best mail client in existence.
Getting Started
Read the Developer Guide on MDN. That will give you a general overview of the Mozilla ecosystem. Thunderbird participates in that ecosystem, so you will need that overview as you join in the work.
Read the Simple Thunderbird build guide on MDN to learn how to run your first build successfully. You will learn how to get the code, set any necessary configuration, build the calendar, rebuild after checking out new code, etc. It's a good read. Don't just skim it.
Code
Code is located on Mozilla's Mercurial server.
- comm-central is the main Thunderbird repository.
- Thunderbird also relies on the code from mozilla-central. See the build instructions for how to obtain all the code needed to build.
- You can search the code on DXR.
There is also some code hosted on GitHub.
- Thundernest contains the code for Thunderbird.net (this site), as well as the Thunderbird web server setup scripts.
- Thunderbird on GitHub contains several Thunderbird related repositories.
Bugs
All Thunderbird bugs live on Mozilla's Bugzilla. Bugzilla is a powerful tool and can be intimidating if you are not used to it. So check out these pre-defined searches to test the waters:
- You can help out by triaging incoming bugs. Known bugs should be marked as duplicates, unconfirmed bugs often needs someone to see if they too can reproduce.
- "Good first bugs" which are extra easy to try and fix when you are just starting out.
- Mentored Bugs have a mentor who commits to helping you every step of the way.
- Thunderbird bug queries is a wiki page with lots of useful searches.
Extension/Add-On Development
See the documentation on MDN.
Design
Make Thunderbird easy to use, and easy on the eyes.
Please share ideas and concepts by posting them on Bugzilla. You can also discuss design in the #maildev irc channel, or the Discourse category.
Documentation
Help make sure the answers are written down before the questions are asked.
Where documentation lives
- The Thunderbird section of the Mozilla wiki.
- The Thunderbird section of MDN.
Contributing to documentation
- MozillaWiki:Policies/Accounts - What you need to know to contribute to the wiki. That page is applicable to the Thunderbird section.
- Getting started on MDN - What you need to know to contribute to the Thunderbird section of MDN.
- Support users asking for help on the Thunderbird Support Forum
Translation
Make sure the entire world can use Thunderbird.
Quality Assurance
Help catch those bugs before they get loose.
Communication
Here are the places and ways Thunderbird communicates.
Discussion Forums
- Thunderbird Support Forum
- Mozilla's Discourse
- Thunderbird Builds on MozillaZine - For help with building Thunderbird and using daily builds.
- mozilla.support.thunderbird is a Google Group for support.
Live Chat
IRC Channels on irc.mozilla.org
You can use Mibbit.com if you don't already have a preferred IRC client.
- #maildev - For hacking on Thunderbird.
- #extdev - For building Thunderbird add-ons/extensions.
- #thunderbird - For general questions and support.
- #tb-qa - For QA chat.
Mailing Lists
- tb-planning (Google Group Mirror) - For high level topics.
- Maildev - A moderated mailing list for Thunderbird Engineering plans.
- tb-support-crew - For those who help the users.
- thunderbird-testers - For anyone who is helping test.
- dev-apps-thunderbird (Newsgroup ) (Google Group Mirror) - For technical and code related discussions, such as add-ons.
- tb-enterprise - For ADMINISTRATORS to discuss large scale deployment and configuration of Thunderbird.
Also check the Communication Channels wiki page.