Working with Mozilla Development Tools Secrets for Power Users

Here are a few ideas from the experts:

• Open Source is here to stay. With Open Source, computer users have free access to applications, systems, and source code. Open Source fosters a community spirit between users and developers.

• Mozilla developers both those adding new content and those who are fixing bugs have a number of powerful tools to help them do their jobs.

• Bugzilla is a bug management program and tracking system developed at Mozilla. With Bugzilla, developers, testers, and users can search for suspected bugs, update bug reports, and (if they are technically able) make a bug fix.

• Tinderbox is a system that tells you the state of the current builds of the various Mozilla products. Tinderbox codes each build with a color: Green means good; yellow means compile/build in progress; orange means the compile/build was okay but failed a test; and red means the source would not compile or build.

• Bonsai is a tool that establishes accountability for various source changes. When something goes wrong, Bonsai can help tell you who last modified a given source file.

• LXR enables an online user to find references, cross-references, and definitions and do general searches on the various source files.