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Markdown Support: Installation

Requirements

• osTicket 1.18.x
• PHP 8.0 or newer (composer.json declares >=7.4, but the code uses PHP 8.0 syntax)
• Access to the file system of the osTicket server and to the admin panel
• Write permission for the web server user on include/class.thread.php, include/.htaccess and the api/ directory (see below)

Install the plugin files

Option 1: release ZIP (recommended)

1. Download the release ZIP from the GitHub releases and extract it.
2. Copy the markdown-support folder to include/plugins/ in your osTicket directory.

The ZIP contains the runtime dependency Parsedown in the vendor/ folder.

Option 2: Git clone with Composer

cd /path/to/osticket/include/plugins
git clone https://github.com/markus-michalski/osticket-markdown-support.git markdown-support
cd markdown-support
composer install --no-dev

The plugin loads vendor/autoload.php on startup. In a Git checkout this folder does not exist until you run composer install, and the plugin cannot start.

The target path is include/plugins/markdown-support/ with plugin.php, class.MarkdownPlugin.php and config.php directly inside.

Activate the plugin

1. In the osTicket Admin Panel, go to Manage > Plugins.
2. Find Markdown Support in the list and activate it.

On activation the following happens:

• The plugin creates an instance itself if needed (singleton, note Auto-created singleton instance).
• It adds rules to include/.htaccess that allow static files (js, css, images, fonts) and PHP files under plugins/.
• It copies markdown-preview.php to api/markdown-preview.php (the live preview endpoint).
• It stores the installed version in the plugin configuration.
• When the active plugin starts, include/class.thread.php is extended with a case 'markdown':. Before that the plugin creates the backup include/class.thread.php.markdown-backup.

The settings are described on the Configuration page.

A browser tab that is already open only gets the editor after the page is reloaded.

Update

Replace the folder include/plugins/markdown-support/ with the new version. On the next start the plugin compares the stored installed_version with the version in plugin.php. If it is older or empty, the plugin updates the .htaccess rules, copies the preview endpoint again and stores the new version.

Updating osTicket

The core patch in include/class.thread.php belongs to osTicket and is lost when an osTicket update replaces the file. The plugin behaves as follows:

• On the next start it finds no case 'markdown': and patches the new file again. If a backup .markdown-backup already exists, it does not overwrite it. The backup then still comes from the file of the old osTicket version.
• On deactivation the plugin copies this old backup over include/class.thread.php and deletes it. That would replace the core file of the new osTicket version with the old one.
• If you delete the backup by hand instead, deactivation restores nothing and the patch stays in the new core file. The plugin recognizes the existing case 'markdown': and does not create a new backup.

Therefore deactivate the plugin before the osTicket update. This restores the original file and deletes the backup. Then apply the osTicket update and activate the plugin again. It then creates a fresh backup of the new file and patches it.

Deactivate and remove

• Deactivate: In the admin panel under Manage > Plugins, deactivate the plugin. The plugin then restores include/class.thread.php from the backup (and deletes the backup), removes api/markdown-preview.php and removes its rules from include/.htaccess.
• Remove: Deactivate first, then uninstall the plugin in the admin panel and delete the folder include/plugins/markdown-support/.

The plugin does not delete any database data. Existing entries keep the format markdown in the format column and their Markdown text. How osTicket displays such entries without the plugin is decided by the osTicket core.