Anthony,
> Is there a breakdown anywhere of the current architecture of the
> mail/news component? I've looked around the docs on mozilla.org, but it
> looks like they all reference the RDF datasource architecture.
Yes, our docs are a bit old and musty.
Start here:
http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/arch/index.html
about the thread pane,
http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/performance/speed.html
> Also,
> I'd like a breakdown of how exactly the sidebar gets its data.
I'd start by reading this
http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/browser/sidebar/
> I'm definitely in an info gathering stage here, so any information you
> could refer me to (online docs, newsgroup threads, whatever) would be
> really helpful. Especially anything relating to the decision to remove
> the RDF datasource (why was this causing such a performance hit?) or how
> the current system works would be really helpful.
see
http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/performance/speed.html for why we
switched to the outliner widget and implemented our own db view classes.
>
> As for implementation ideas, I think a good start would definitely be to
> use the folder datasource, and go from there. That way, I could grow
> more accustomed to developing for the sidebar with a predefined
> datasource, then go from there. So, I think I've found some docs that
> mention how to set up sidebar panels based on RDF datasources, but there
> is one piece of info missing: How to I reference the folder RDF
> datasource?
Your best resource is going to be the code.
start with
http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/mailnews/base/resources/content/folderPane.xul
to see how we generate the folder tree from the account manager and
folder datasources.
-Seth
