seia-soto / thunderbird-patches

Betterbird is a fork of Mozilla Thunderbird. Here are the patches that provide all the goodness.

thunderbird-patches

Betterbird is a fork of Mozilla Thunderbird. Here are the patches that provide all the goodness. Visit www.betterbird.eu for details.

Building Betterbird

These instruction assume that you know how to build Thunderbird. The following instructions are specific to Betterbird.

1. Pull mozilla-esr91 and comm-esr91. (The comm-esr91 repo goes into the mozilla-esr91/comm/ subdirectory.)
2. Update to the versions noted in 91/91.sh: hg up -r <rev>. The patches apply to exactly those revisions.
3. Put 91/series-M-C into mozilla-esr91/.hg/patches; rename series-M-C to series.
4. Put 91/series into mozilla-esr91/comm/.hg/patches.
5. Put all patches from 91/branding, 91/bugs, 91/features, 91/misc into mozilla-esr91/comm/.hg/patches, then move the ones ending in *-m-c.patch into mozilla-esr91/.hg/patches.
6. Copy .mozconfig into the mozilla-esr91 directory.
7. Apply the patches using hg qpush -a. This will fail if you omitted step 2.
8. Build normally using mach build.
9. Build an installer using mach package.

Voilà. ✔️

Note that our builds sometimes include patches taken from bugzilla.mozilla.org when we quick-track fixes. We don't store those patches here. Those patches will have a comment in the series file pointing to the original changeset. You need to (w)get these patches. If you miss them, you will notice it on the hg qpush. Note that hg qimport can't be used since it adds the patch to the series file where it is already present.

The process described above is automated for Linux and Mac, see below for details. The build script (thunderbird-patches/build/build.sh) which automates all the steps above also works for Windows.

Linux users please note that 08-branding-m-c.patch patches a Windows installer script making use of Windows PowerShell. However, that part of the build system should not be triggered for Linux builds. Windows users please note that packaging will fail without an appropriate code signing certificate installed.

Linux users follow these instructions: To build successfully on Linux, you need at least 16 GB of memory or swap space. We executed the steps successfully on a Ubuntu 20.04 cloud server (Hetzner CPX41, 8 CPUs, 16 GB RAM, 240 GB disk). Building for aarch64 (aka arm64) is also supported. You need to run the build on a aarch64 machine (which you can hire at Amazon EC2). Sadly mach bootstrap doesn't work on Linux/aarch64, the build script will tell you what to do. This follows the first part of the Firefox build instructions.

1. Prepare to install necessary dependencies: sudo apt update
2. Install some packages: sudo apt-get install git python3 python3-dev python3-pip
3. Install Mercurial: sudo apt-get install mercurial if the Mercurial in your distribution is new enough (as it should be for Ubuntu 20.04). Otherwise use the following two steps.
4. Install Mercurial: echo "export PATH=\"$(python3 -m site --user-base)/bin:$PATH\"" >> ~/.bashrc and python3 -m pip install --user mercurial
5. In a new shell: hg version
6. Install Rust: curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh and select option 1
7. $HOME/.cargo/bin/rustup override set 1.53.0, this is needed for Mozilla ESR 91 code
8. Prepare a directory for all the action, let's say: mkdir build && cd build
9. Copy the goodness from this repository: git clone https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches.git
10. Copy the build script to your build directory: cp thunderbird-patches/build/build.sh .
11. Issue this command: ./build.sh 91

Voilà. ✔️ For subsequent builds you only need to repeat the last step ./build.sh 91.

Please note that the Ansible-betterbird build has been replaced and is no longer supported.

Mac users follow these instructions: You need to have at least macOS 12 (Monterey) and you need to install Xcode from the Apple App Store (which requires an Apple ID). Then follow the first part of the Firefox build instructions, the Thunderbird documentation is incomplete.

1. Install Homebrew: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
2. Xcode modifications: sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app and sudo xcodebuild -license
3. Install Mercurial: echo "export PATH=\"$(python3 -m site --user-base)/bin:$PATH\"" >> ~/.zshenv and python3 -m pip install --user mercurial
4. In a new shell: hg version
5. Install Rust: brew install rustup
6. In a new shell: rustup-init and rustup override set 1.53.0, the latter is needed for Mozilla ESR 91 code
7. Install wget: brew install wget
8. Prepare a directory for all the action, let's say: mkdir build && cd build
9. Copy the goodness from this repository: git clone https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches.git
10. Copy the build script to your build directory: cp thunderbird-patches/build/build.sh .
11. Issue this command: ./build.sh 91

Voilà. ✔️ For subsequent builds you only need to repeat the last step ./build.sh 91.

Bug Reporting / Support

Read www.betterbird.eu/support/. Here is an abridged version:

1. Thunderbird has 14.000+ bugs which won't be fixed as part of Betterbird.
2. First step: Check whether the bug exists in Thunderbird. If so, check whether it has been reported at Bugzilla. If reported, please let us know the bug number. If not reported, either you or our project will need to report it (see following item).
3. If the bug is also in Thunderbird, let us know that it's important to you, please provide reasons why Betterbird should fix it and not upstream Thunderbird. We'll check whether we deem it "must have" enough to fix it considering the necessary effort.
4. If the bug is only in Betterbird, let us know, we'll endeavour to fix it asap, usually within days.
5. Common sense bug reporting rules apply: Bug needs to be reproducible, user needs to cooperate in debugging.

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