# DokuWiki Changes **DokuWiki Changes** is a record of every place this installation patches DokuWiki core directly (`inc/`, `bin/`, entry points), plus an honest assessment of which patches actually required touching core versus which ones could have been ordinary plugins. `lib/tpl/` and `lib/plugins/` are separate, gitignored git repositories not covered here except where they interact with a core patch. ## Had to be core One change genuinely could not have been a plugin. - **Page file extension `.txt` → `.md`** (`inc/init.php` defines `DOKU_EXT`). DokuWiki hardcodes `.txt` as a string literal in `wikiFN()` (`inc/pageutils.php`), the extension filters and `pathID()` in `inc/search.php`, the page-file glob in `inc/TreeBuilder/PageTreeBuilder.php`, namespace templates in `inc/common.php`, and the export filename in `inc/Action/Export.php`. None of these are event hooks, they're direct string comparisons and concatenations scattered through code that runs on every page load. There is no extension point a plugin could intercept to change what "a page file" means globally. `bin/wantedpages.php` and the new `bin/migrate-ext.php` needed the same fix for consistency. ## Could plausibly have been plugins These touch core but DokuWiki exposes an event or extension mechanism that would have avoided it. - **Cache invalidation on save** (`inc/Action/Save.php`, commit `3146996`). Explicitly clears `CacheInstructions` and `CacheRenderer` after a save so a no-op re-save still forces a re-render. DokuWiki fires `COMMON_WIKIPAGE_SAVE` around this exact point; an action plugin hooking that event and calling the same two cache classes would have done this without editing core. - **Math, `eqn`, `latex_figure` rendering** (`inc/parser/renderer.php` + `inc/parser/xhtml.php`, commit `fb8ba4b`). Added three new renderer methods with abstract stubs. New markup syntax is the textbook case for a DokuWiki *syntax plugin* (`extends DokuWiki_Syntax_Plugin`, registering `connectTo()` patterns and its own `render()` implementation) — the KaTeX plugin already sitting alongside this proves the pattern works. Patching the renderer directly means every future DokuWiki upgrade has to be re-merged against these three methods. - **Open Graph tags** (`tpl_socialcard()` in `inc/template.php`). Injects `` tags. `tpl_metaheaders()` already fires `Event::createAndTrigger('TPL_METAHEADER_OUTPUT', $head, ...)` right after the point these tags are added — an action plugin hooking that event and pushing entries onto `$head['meta']` would produce identical output with zero core changes. - **Favicon PNG/JPG-before-ICO lookup** (`tpl_favicon()` in `inc/template.php`). This isn't even a plugin candidate so much as a template candidate: `tpl_favicon()` is called by the *template*, and a custom template fully controls its own ``. The lookup could have been written directly in the `yanevskiv` template's header code instead of changing the shared core function every template on the install uses. - **Ace editor integration** (`inc/Ui/Editor.php`, `inc/template.php`, commits `1c211c0`, `fc74044`). Swaps the plain `

` for an Ace-backed editor and injects the Ace `<script>` tag. `Ui\Editor::addTextarea()` is itself invoked through `Event::createAndTrigger('EDIT_FORM_ADDTEXTAREA', $data, [$this, 'addTextarea'], true)` — the event exists precisely so a plugin can override what gets rendered in that slot. The later "edit bar above textarea" commit (`fc74044`) reordered PHP render calls to move the edit bar's HTML earlier in the form; the same visual effect (`bar` before `textarea`) is achievable with plain CSS (`flex`/`order`) without touching render order in `inc/Ui/Editor.php` at all.
 - **`(WIP)` sitemap grouping** (`inc/Ui/Index.php`, commit `460adbf`). Splits `/sitemap` into "Work in progress" / "Finished pages" by checking `p_get_first_heading($id)`. Borderline: there's no clean hook to restructure the built-in index listing, so a plugin would have had to reimplement `do=index` wholesale as its own action plugin rather than patch three lines of grouping logic into the existing one. Reasonable to leave as a core patch, but worth another look if `TPL_CONTENT_DISPLAY` or a similar filter existed for this specific list.

## Legitimately core (no clean alternative)

- **`wikilink-wip` CSS class on internal links** (`inc/parser/xhtml.php`, commit `56ae807`). Adding a CSS class to the existing `internallink()` renderer method based on `p_get_first_heading()`. Same category as the math renderer methods above — arguably a syntax/action plugin territory in principle, but since it modifies the *existing* `wikilink1`/`wikilink2` class logic rather than adding new syntax, there's no clean plugin seam for "change the CSS class DokuWiki already assigns to links it already renders."
 - **Clean `/sitemap` and `/media` URLs** (`inc/Menu/Item/Index.php`, `inc/Menu/Item/Media.php`, commits `460adbf`, `e60fe2d`). Overrides `getLink()` on core menu item classes that `SiteMenu`/`MobileMenu` instantiate directly with no filter hook in between. Short of post-processing the rendered menu HTML with a template-level regex (fragile), this needed a direct override.

## Abandoned experiment: `feat/Markup` branch

Fifteen commits between November 2025 and February 2026 built a hand-rolled markup engine at `inc/Markup/Markup.php` (tokenizer, block scanning, `\begin`/`\end`, line commands, `\itemize`/`\enumerate`) — apparently aimed at parsing LaTeX-like structure more thoroughly than the current `latex_figure` stub (which just renders as a raw `latex` code block, per `inc/parser/xhtml.php`). This work never merged into `master`; it lives only on the `feat/Markup` branch and isn't deployed anywhere. Worth revisiting if `latex_figure` ever needs real structural parsing instead of pass-through rendering.

## Companion tooling, not core changes

- `bin/texrender` — a POSIX shell script (LaTeX → SVG/PNG/PDF via `texfot`/pdflatex-family tools) tracked in `bin/` per this repo's convention. It's a standalone CLI, not a DokuWiki patch; it doesn't touch any `inc/` code and DokuWiki has no concept of it.
 - `bin/migrate-ext.php` — new script to rename pages and attic revisions between extensions. Tooling, not a runtime change.

## Plugins already done right

For contrast, `katex`, `markdowku`, `man`, and `socialicons` are all proper plugins living in the gitignored `lib/plugins/`, touching zero core files. `man` in particular hooks `ACTION_ACT_PREPROCESS` and `TPL_ACT_UNKNOWN` to serve entirely synthetic pages without ever writing to `data/pages` — proof that even fairly deep integrations (routing, rendering, caching) are achievable through the plugin API when the right event exists.