How to get started editing the source for Chromium?

Question

I am a somewhat novice programmer (by which I mean I am proficient in many programming languages, but have never taken formal classes) and would like to heavily mod the Chromium web browser for my own purposes. I would need to change the UI significantly, as well as make somewhat major changes to the V8 embedded javascript engine, and I would like to know where I can start. I guess what I really need to know is:

1. Are there certain programming conventions I should observe to better understand how Chromium works?
2. Are there any guides/tutorials on how the file system used for the source works?
3. Are there any guides/tutorials on how to edit/interpret the Chromium source code specifically?
4. Should I try to mod Chromium, or should I try to build my own web browser using WebKit and V8?
5. I am also considering basing by browser on FireFox. Would that be easier to get started with? Since I plan on learning as I work, I would like to be able to understand the

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as well as any gems of wisdom from your own, personal experiences.

P.S.: I'm running Ubuntu 11.10, if that makes a difference at all.

Answer 1

The Chromium.org site has some resources :

• General http://www.chromium.org/Home
• Building on Ubuntu : http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxBuildInstructions
• Conventions : http://www.chromium.org/developers/coding-style
• Contributing : http://www.chromium.org/developers/contributing-code

(Sounds RTFM-y, I know, sorry)

That said, you're probably better of tweaking an existing browser codebase rather than creating one "from scratch" - a task which I would assume to be daunting at least.