Overview of chrome://sync-internals ----------------------------------- This note explains how chrome://sync-internals (also known as about:sync) interacts with the sync service/backend. Basically, chrome://sync-internals sends messages to the sync backend and the sync backend sends the reply asynchronously. The sync backend also asynchronously raises events which chrome://sync-internals listen to. A message and its reply has a name and a list of arguments, which is basically a wrapper around an immutable ListValue. An event has a name and a details object, which is represented by a JsEventDetails (js_event_details.h) object, which is basically a wrapper around an immutable DictionaryValue. Message/event flow ------------------ chrome://sync-internals is represented by SyncInternalsUI (chrome/browser/ui/webui/sync_internals_ui.h). SyncInternalsUI interacts with the sync service via a JsController (js_controller.h) object, which has a ProcessJsMessage() method that just delegates to an underlying JsBackend instance (js_backend.h). The SyncInternalsUI object also registers itself (as a JsEventHandler [js_event_handler.h]) to the JsController object, and any events raised by the JsBackend are propagated to the JsController and then to the registered JsEventHandlers. The ProcessJsMessage() takes a WeakHandle (weak_handle.h) to a JsReplyHandler (js_reply_handler.h), which the backend uses to send replies safely across threads. SyncInternalsUI implements JsReplyHandler, so it simply passes itself as the reply handler when it calls ProcessJsMessage() on the JsController. The following objects live on the UI thread: - SyncInternalsUI (implements JsEventHandler, JsReplyHandler) - SyncJsController (implements JsController, JsEventHandler) The following objects live on the sync thread: - SyncManager::SyncInternal (implements JsBackend) Of course, none of these objects need to know where the other objects live, since they interact via WeakHandles.