Windows Mobile Build Instructions

work in progress - things are changing as we speak, er.. as you read this

Overview

This page covers building the latest version of the Windows Mobile XULRunner and Fennec applications using either Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 and the MozillaBuild environment.

These instructions are changing frequently.

The Windows Mobile build of XULRunner and Mobile Fennec is undergoing major improvements and bug fixes. Do not be surprised if your attempt to build and/or run do not immediately work.

People focused on the Windows Mobile build are currently using the #wince channel to communicate about Windows Mobile build-specific issues.

Did we mention that things are changing frequently?

Big Picture

These instructions are broken down into four parts:

(1) Preparing To Build XULRunner and Fennec, or what to do before pulling down a single bit of code

(2) Actual Building of XULRunner and Fennec, or how to pull down, prepare, and compile the XULRunner and Fennec code

(3) Debugging XULRunner and Fennec, also known as 'Now that I have it built, what next?'

(4) Device Specific Testing Information, which is information about specific devices that people have tested and their issues

Other Tips

1. Color scheme for MingW32 Command Line Prompt

I hated the default color scheme for the command prompt under MingW32 - so I changed it. Find the file c:\mozilla-build\msys\etc\profile, and edit the lines (toward the bottom) which export PS1, and make them say:

export PS1='\[\033]0;$MSYSTEM:\w\007
\033[34m\]\u@\h \[\033[31m\w\033[0m\]
$ '

This changed the directory color to something I could actually see against a white background.

2. Further Setting Up MingW32 Path

I get annoyed with continually adding the path to the Mercurial HG.EXE, as well as continually adding the path to the build's wince tools directory.

So I created a c:\mozilla-build\msys\etc\profile.d\profile-setup-hg.sh file, containing:

#!/bin/sh

export PATH="$PATH:/c/progra~1/Mercurial"

This sets up my HG.EXE path to a self-installed latest version of Mercurial.

All shell files in c:\mozilla-build\msys\etc\profile.d are executed upon bash shell startup.