Now that we are living in a Thunderbird 3.0 world, there will be times when we will want to indicate that content on the Mozilla Developer Center applies to a specific Thunderbird release version. (We’ve already been doing this to some degree with Thunderbird 3, but over the next year we will have many more release versions to manage.)

There are two mechanisms for labeling content on the Mozilla Developer Center: tags and templates.

Tags

At the bottom of each MDC page there is a section called “Tags”. These are folksonomy tags that apply to an entire page (for example, “Thunderbird” or “Thunderbird 3″). These are not pre-defined, so you can add a new tag (such as “Thunderbird 3.2″) as needed. However, please check the list of tags that is displayed as you enter letters in the “Tags” field, and try to avoid duplicating existing tags.

The main benefit of tags is that you can list all the pages that have a particular tag  by clicking the hyperlinked tag word. Therefore, don’t be afraid of adding lots of tags, and don’t be afraid of making tags too specific.

Templates

There are four MDC templates that are used to indicate that page (or a section on a page) applies to a specific version:

• {{template.Tb_minversion_header(N)}}: This template should be used when the content of the whole page or section applies to Thunderbird version N or higher.
• {{template.tb_minversion_inline(N)}}: This template should be used when an individual item in a list or a table appeared in Thunderbird version N.
• {{template.Tb_minversion_note(N, “The <code>foobar()</code> method works differently in Thunderbird N.”)}}: This template should be used when you need to insert a Thunderbird version-specific note into an article.
• {{template.Tb_minversion_section(N)}}: This template should be used when the content of a section applies to Thunderbird version N or higher.

So, for example, if you were to paste (as text ) the following into the MDC editor:

{{template.Tb_minversion_header(3.2)}}

{{template.Tb_minversion_section(3.2)}}

{{template.tb_minversion_inline(3.2)}}

{{template.Tb_minversion_note(3.2, "The <code>foobar()</code> method works differently in Thunderbird 3.2.")}}

…you would see this after saving the page:

Another useful template is {{template.draft(”")}}. This generates:

See the Template page on MDC for a complete list of MDC templates.

Please help out with our first Doc Day, this Thursday December 17. By expanding the developer documentation available to the community, you help people become involved with Thunderbird.

You can contribute a how-to, describe a new 3.0 feature or module or provide some content to the Thunderbird Overview page. For more information see my previous post  “RC 1 - Good Time for Docs“.

Feel free to write in whatever environment works best for you. If you want to write directly on MDC - great, go for it. If you prefer to brain-dump to a text file - that’s fine too. Just email it to me (jen at mozillamessaging.com) and I’ll edit and publish it.

Don’t have the time or inclination to write a full piece? No problem - send me an outline or a partial draft. These are helpful too - other people can come along and continue your work later.

Thanks in advance to everyone who helps out! If you need help or have questions, contact me at jen at mozillamessaging.com or “jenzed” on the Mozilla maildev IRC channel.

Now that RC1 is out the door - congratulations! - I’m hoping that Thunderbird developers can spend some time on documentation.  Here are the tasks (in order of importance):

TB3 for Developers

• https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Thunderbird_3_for_developers
• Please review, add new stuff, expand existing stuff. Please use lots of links (to pages on MDC, if available, otherwise to MXR pages and relevant bugs).

New Modules

• Protovis, jQuery: what they are, how they’re available to add-on authors, and ideally a sample extension

How-Tos

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Thunderbird/HowTos
• Add a new one question or answer an existing one

Thunderbird Overview

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Thunderbird/An_overview_of_the_Thunderbird_interface
• Look for the TODO markers

Shout if you need help - jen at mozillamessaging.com. Feel free to brain-dump into a text file and I’ll take care of the rest. (I know MDC is somewhat painful these days - don’t let that be an impediment.)

There is a new Thunderbird contribution on the Mozilla Developer Center that explains how to invoke address autocomplete, searching first local address books and then globally configured LDAP servers. It works with both Thunderbird 2.x (Gecko 1.8) and 3.x (Gecko 1.9). Many thanks to simon.at.orcl!

Contributing to the Mozilla Developer Center is easy. First, get an account. Next, look for questions that need answers on the how-to page. Alternatively, write a larger article on the topic of your choice (such as the new address autocomplete article) or help out with the Thunderbird 3.0 documentation effort.