Thread:Extension talk:DumpHTML/Gotchas when using DumpHTML

These are a few points that are not so obvious when using DumpHTML for the first time:


 * First of all, you need to download the latest version: https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-DumpHTML/archive/master.zip


 * DumpHTML gets its data from 2 sources: (1) the wiki database and (2) from http calls to the web server. This means that the web server must be running when dumping to html. If not, at least the Logo image and Favicon will be created as zero-byte files in the static html dump.


 * Windows users must use '--munge-title windows' (without the single quotes), otherwise names of some html files will be truncated and the contents will be empty. This is true for articles whose title include illegal Windows filename characters like /\*?"<>|. The --munge-title option makes sure that these characters are not present in the destination filenames.


 * If you really want an offline static html dump, let DumpHTML use the default '-k offline' skin (or omit the -k switch, which is the same). When using a named skin other than 'offline', references to the live wiki will be included in the dump. In that case, the live wiki must be available while viewing the html dump, otherwise the skin will not load. The '-k offline' switch removes these references and uses a monobook-like offline skin instead.


 * Make sure that the destination folder for the dump does not exist. If it already exists, some subfolders won't be created, skins won't be copied and the offline skin won't be available in the static html dump.


 * --force-copy apparently does not do anything
 * --show-titles is not documented


 * DumpHTML creates a dumpHTML.version file in the destination folder. This file holds the version number of DumpHTML. It reads 2.0 but should really be 1.20