Where are prefs documented?

[shoestring]

I've had some satisfaction adding bits and pieces to the user.js and userChrome and userContent.css files that I've picked up here and there (notably on texturizer).

But where are all these things documented? In other words, how do you work out a magical piece of JS, to, say, make tabs shorter? Or would that be in one of the css files? Not that I know any css, but I can figure out JS when necessary.

I spent some time the other night browsing through all the files that come with Phoenix, and am more confused now than I was before.

There must be some documentation on all the objects you can hack around with and the kinds of perverted things you can do to them, but I'm danged if I can figure out where. Navigating the Mozilla complex of websites ain't easy!

[cb]

I spent some time the other night browsing through all the files that come with Phoenix, and am more confused now than I was before.

Be aware that there is still some "excess baggage" from the Mozilla code that will be cut out as Phoenix progresses. So some of the stuff is not relevant... but I'll be damned if I can tell the difference!

[grayrest]

There must be some documentation on all the objects you can hack around with and the kinds of perverted things you can do to them, but I'm danged if I can figure out where. Navigating the Mozilla complex of websites ain't easy!

The code is the documentation. Seriously. Don't trust any other documents, because most of them are out of date, we've never really had a successful documentation team in the mozilla project. I mean, come on, we don't even have a feature list. If you want something specific, ask and it'll probably be answered, but if you want to do cool stuff on your own, you're on your own.

I'm not quite sure how to do everything in phoenix (I've only spent serious time with mozilla UI code) but in my experience the prefs come from random places. There is no real centralized location for them and between texturizer and http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/ you can get most of what you want done. Asking on irc.mozilla.org can get you most of the rest. Otherwise you just need to get lucky

The CSS is easier, in Mozilla you use the DOM inspector, click on the offending bit of chrome to get the id and class and then use your working knowledge of CSS to figure out what to do to change the size. Don't know CSS? The w3schools has a decent tutorial. When doing any serious CSS work I always snag the w3 sidebars from netscape evangelism. Unfortunately, both of these only work in mozilla proper, neither custom sidebars nor the DOM Inspector currently works in Phoenix. The stuff you see coming out now is done by looking directly at the source code and figuring it out from there. I, however, am very lazy and refuse to do anything chrome-related in Phoenix until the DOM Inspector works.

[laszlo]

You can also find some prefs that don't have a UI by digging through the files in <Mozilla/Phoenix dir>/defaults/pref. Some of the prefs are explained, some of them explain themselves, the rest is plain voodoo, but a look a them won't hurt.

[gemal]

type "about:config" into the location and hit enter!