Calendar:Branding

Background

Sunbird is unique in that we hope to ship it both as an extension (for use in toolkit apps), and in a standalone version, perhaps as a client of Xulrunner. Because of this, our branding/l10n strategy with regard to chrome URLs will differ from Firefox and Thunderbird's.

There exists the scenario where we want to use the name "Sunbird" even when running as an extension inside another "host app". In that scenario, we can't simply use chrome://branding/locale/brand.dtd and &brand.shortName; because that will give us the host app's name (ie: "Firefox") rather than "Sunbird". We must use another chrome URL in our .xul/.js referencing a calendar-specific URL that we know will be there.

At the same time, toolkit relies on the branding information for the application being at chrome://branding/locale/brand.dtd (or brand.properties). This means when Sunbird is running in standalone, it must have its branding in two places: chrome://branding/locale/brand.dtd and the calendar-specific URL. This also means that Sunbird must only register the chrome://branding URL when in standalone mode. See this link for information on app-specific chrome registration.

For this reason, we should use chrome://calendar/locale/branding/brand.dtd only where we want the name to be "Sunbird" regardless of deployment. If we want to show the host application's name, be it "Sunbird" or otherwise, we should use the toolkit standard of chrome://branding/locale/brand.dtd