nuwiki/known-issues.md

# Known Issues & Divergences from vimwiki

nuwiki is an LSP-backed reimplementation of [vimwiki](https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki),
not a fork of the original VimL plugin. It targets behavioral parity with
vimwiki, but a handful of upstream options and behaviors are implemented
differently — or intentionally not at all — because of that architecture.

This page is the single source of truth for how nuwiki differs from vimwiki.
Everything here is either a deliberate design choice or a tracked future task;
none of it is an accidental bug.

If you hit a behavior that *isn't* listed here and doesn't match vimwiki, please
file it — that's a real bug.

---

## Deferred (planned, not yet implemented)

These are genuine feature gaps that we intend to close, grouped because they
ship together.

### Markdown generated-content

The buffer-side generators — TOC (`:VimwikiTOC`), generated links
(`:VimwikiGenerateLinks`), the tags index (`:VimwikiGenerateTagLinks`), and the
diary index — always emit **vimwiki** markup (`= Heading =`), regardless of the
wiki's `syntax`. Markdown wikis therefore get vimwiki-syntax generated sections.

Dependent on markdown-syntax generation, and deferred until it lands:

- **markdown-style heading generation** in those generators (`# Heading`).
- **`markdown_header_style`** — blank lines after a generated *markdown* header
  (no markdown header exists to attach it to yet).
- **`markdown_link_ext`** — append the file extension in generated markdown links.

Hand-authored markdown content renders fine; only the *generated* sections are
affected.

---

## Behavioral divergences (by design)

These upstream options have no nuwiki equivalent, because the LSP server
provides the capability a different way. They will not be re-implemented as-is.

### Highlighting & display

| vimwiki option | nuwiki behavior |
|----------------|-----------------|
| `maxhi` | Broken/existence-based link highlighting is provided by **LSP diagnostics** instead (severity is configurable via `diagnostic.link_severity`). |
| `conceallevel`, `conceal_onechar_markers`, other `conceal*` | Replaced by **LSP semantic tokens**; there is no conceal layer to configure. |

### Syntax detection

| vimwiki option | nuwiki behavior |
|----------------|-----------------|
| `nested_syntaxes` / `automatic_nested_syntaxes` | Code-fence languages are auto-detected from the fence tag (` ```python `); always on, no toggle. |
| `ext2syntax` | Syntax is chosen by file extension / the per-wiki `syntax` key automatically. |
| `global_ext` | The configured wiki extension(s) always map to the `vimwiki` filetype regardless of location; there is no per-wiki "only inside the root" toggle (effectively always on). |
| `syntax` default name | nuwiki defaults the per-wiki `syntax` to `vimwiki` where upstream defaults to `default` — a naming difference only, not behavioral. |

### Configuration mechanism

| vimwiki option | nuwiki behavior |
|----------------|-----------------|
| `folding` (string) | Replaced by `folding = 'lsp' \| 'expr' \| 'off'`, backed by the LSP `foldingRange` provider. |
| `key_mappings` (dict) | Replaced by the Lua `mappings.<group>` table and the `g:nuwiki_no_<group>_mappings` globals. |

### Tags

| vimwiki option | nuwiki behavior |
|----------------|-----------------|
| `auto_tags` | Upstream maintains an on-disk tag *metadata* file on save. nuwiki has no such file: the server re-indexes tags on every change, so tag search / jump / completion are always fresh. The configurable on-save piece (regenerating the in-buffer links section) is `auto_generate_tags`. |

### Mappings

| vimwiki option | nuwiki behavior |
|----------------|-----------------|
| Mouse maps (`<2-LeftMouse>`, `<MiddleMouse>`, …) | Upstream binds these unconditionally; nuwiki ships them **opt-in** via `mappings.mouse` / `g:nuwiki_mouse_mappings`. |

### Value-semantics differences

| vimwiki option | nuwiki behavior |
|----------------|-----------------|
| `list_margin` (negative) | Upstream resolves a negative value to the buffer's `'shiftwidth'`. The server can't observe `'shiftwidth'`, so negative values collapse to **zero** leading indent on generated bullets. Set a non-negative number for a fixed indent. |
| `diary_caption_level = -1` | Accepted (the field is deserializable), but **clamps to `0`**. nuwiki builds the diary index tree from dates, so upstream's `-1` = "no per-page captions" semantic doesn't apply. |

### Vim/Win shims & syntax internals (not applicable)

`CJK_length`, `listing_hl*`, `schemes_*`, `w32_dir_enc`, `menu`, `rx_todo`,
`tag_format` — these are syntax internals, menu definitions, or Vim/Windows
shims with no role in an LSP-backed implementation.

---

## Default-location differences

Where you don't set a path explicitly, nuwiki derives a different *default
location* than upstream — by design, so each wiki is root-relative and
self-contained. You can set any of these explicitly to match upstream exactly.

| Key | nuwiki default | upstream default |
|-----|----------------|------------------|
| `html_path` | `<root>/_html` | sibling `<wikidir>_html/` |
| `template_path` | `<root>/_templates` | global `~/vimwiki/templates/` |
| `diary_rel_path` | `diary` | `diary/` (trailing slash only — paths join identically, so behavior matches) |

---

## Internal deferrals (non-parity)

These are not vimwiki differences — they're known low-priority optimizations on
cold code paths, recorded so they aren't rediscovered as "bugs." All are
correct as-is; the deferral is a deliberate risk/reward call.

- **RSS `render_entry_body` reads from disk.** It re-reads and re-parses each
  diary entry from disk rather than reusing an open buffer. This is the *correct*
  source of truth for an export artifact — switching to unsaved buffer text would
  change semantics, not just performance.
- **`push_level_edit_for_line` scans from offset 0.** The list-level change
  (`gl`/`gL`) computes each line's start offset by scanning from the document
  start. It's an interactive single-keypress path over small inputs, and the
  offset-arithmetic rewrite carries more regression risk than the saved time is
  worth.
- **Diary next/prev neighbor scan.** `:VimwikiDiaryNextDay` / `PrevDay` rebuild
  and sort the entry list to find one neighbor. Same reasoning — cold path,
  small input.

## Notes

- **Upstream `g:vimwiki_list` config (Vim).** When you haven't configured
  nuwiki natively, the Vim client reads your upstream `g:vimwiki_list` +
  `g:vimwiki_*` globals and translates them into nuwiki's schema (per-wiki
  `path`/`path_html`/`template_*`/`auto_export`, plus globals `toc_header`,
  `toc_header_level`, `html_header_numbering`, `html_header_numbering_sym`,
  `links_space_char`, `list_margin`). `g:nuwiki_*` always wins. Globals nuwiki
  doesn't model (e.g. `automatic_nested_syntaxes`) are ignored — see the
  divergence list above. **Limitation:** this drop-in translation is currently
  **Vim-only**; on Neovim, configure via `setup()` / `g:nuwiki_wikis`.
- **Third-party plugin compatibility.** A shim at `autoload/vimwiki/vars.vim`
  exposes the subset of `vimwiki#vars#get_wikilocal` that plugins like
  vimwiki-sync and vim-zettel call (`path`, `ext`/`extension`, `syntax`,
  `is_temporary_wiki`), resolved from nuwiki's own config — including the
  correct per-wiki values in a multi-wiki setup. Add keys there if a plugin you
  use needs more.
- **Additive commands.** nuwiki adds some commands with no upstream equivalent
  (e.g. `:NuwikiFindOrphans`). These are additions, not divergences.