Instead of having files foo.html "in front of" foo/, I prefer to have 
foo/index.html. This patch allows that. Specifically, foo/index.type 
is translated to $links{'foo/'}, and bestlink looks for either "foo" or 
"foo/" when linking to pages. There are other miscellaneous changes that 
go with that:

1. change the `cgi_editpage` `@page_locs` code so that creating foo from 
   a/b/c prefers a/b/foo and then a/b/c/foo, but if creating foo from a/b/c/,
   then prefer a/b/c/foo. I'm not really sure why the original was doing what
   it did (why trim terminal `/` if no pages end in `/`?), so this part might
   break something.
2. tweak things so that index.rss and index.atom are generated if inlining 
   from 'foo/'
2. backlinks from "foo/bar" to "foo/" trim common prefixes as long as there 
   would be something left when the trimming is done (i.e. don't trim "foo/")
3. parentlinks for "foo/" are the same as for "foo", except one directory 
   higher
4. rewrite parentlinks so that bestlink is called at each level
5. basename("foo/") => basename("foo")
6. links to "foo/" are translated to "foo/index.html" rather than "foo/.html".
  (Links to "foo/" might be preferred, but that causes an infinite loop in 
  writefile, because apparently dirname("foo/") == "foo/" on my system for 
  reasons that aren't clear to me.)
7. pagetitle("foo/") => pagetitle("foo")
8. clip the final slash when matching a relative pagespec, even if there are
   no characters after it (otherwise inlining "./a" from "foo/" gets 
   translated to "foo//a")

In case whitespace gets garbled, I'm also leaving a copy of the patch on 
[my site](http://ikidev.betacantrips.com/patches/index.patch). It should apply 
cleanly to a freshly unpacked ikiwiki-1.42. You can also see it in action 
[here](http://ikidev.betacantrips.com/one/). --Ethan

    diff -urX ignorepats ikiclean/IkiWiki/CGI.pm ikidev/IkiWiki/CGI.pm
    --- ikiclean/IkiWiki/CGI.pm	2007-02-11 21:40:32.419641000 -0800
    +++ ikidev/IkiWiki/CGI.pm	2007-02-11 21:54:36.252357000 -0800
    @@ -408,8 +408,8 @@
     				@page_locs=$best_loc=$page;
     			}
     			else {
    -				my $dir=$from."/";
    -				$dir=~s![^/]+/+$!!;
    +				my $dir=$from;
    +				$dir=~s![^/]+$!!;
     				
     				if ((defined $form->field('subpage') && length $form->field('subpage')) ||
     				    $page eq gettext('discussion')) {
    @@ -420,7 +420,9 @@
     				}
     				
     				push @page_locs, $dir.$page;
    -				push @page_locs, "$from/$page";
    +				if ($dir ne $from){ # i.e. $from not a directory
    +					push @page_locs, "$from/$page";
    +				}
     				while (length $dir) {
     					$dir=~s![^/]+/+$!!;
     					push @page_locs, $dir.$page;
    diff -urX ignorepats ikiclean/IkiWiki/Plugin/inline.pm ikidev/IkiWiki/Plugin/inline.pm
    --- ikiclean/IkiWiki/Plugin/inline.pm	2007-02-11 21:40:31.996007000 -0800
    +++ ikidev/IkiWiki/Plugin/inline.pm	2007-02-11 21:54:36.008358000 -0800
    @@ -110,8 +110,8 @@
     
     	add_depends($params{page}, $params{pages});
     
    -	my $rssurl=rsspage(basename($params{page}));
    -	my $atomurl=atompage(basename($params{page}));
    +	my $rssurl=basename(rsspage($params{page}));
    +	my $atomurl=basename(atompage($params{page}));
     	my $ret="";
     
     	if (exists $params{rootpage} && $config{cgiurl}) {
    @@ -285,14 +285,18 @@
     
     sub rsspage ($) { #{{{
     	my $page=shift;
    +	$page = htmlpage($page);
    +	$page =~s/\.html$/.rss/;
     
    -	return $page.".rss";
    +	return $page;
     } #}}}
     
     sub atompage ($) { #{{{
     	my $page=shift;
    +	$page = htmlpage($page);
    +	$page =~s/\.html$/.atom/;
     
    -	return $page.".atom";
    +	return $page;
     } #}}}
     
     sub genfeed ($$$$@) { #{{{
    diff -urX ignorepats ikiclean/IkiWiki/Render.pm ikidev/IkiWiki/Render.pm
    --- ikiclean/IkiWiki/Render.pm	2007-02-11 21:40:32.413641000 -0800
    +++ ikidev/IkiWiki/Render.pm	2007-02-11 21:54:36.246356000 -0800
    @@ -40,6 +40,7 @@
     		my $dir;
     		1 while (($dir)=$page_trimmed=~m!^([^/]+/)!) &&
     		        defined $dir &&
    +			$p_trimmed=~m/^\Q$dir\E(?:.)/ &&
     		        $p_trimmed=~s/^\Q$dir\E// &&
     		        $page_trimmed=~s/^\Q$dir\E//;
     			       
    @@ -57,10 +58,18 @@
     	my $path="";
     	my $skip=1;
     	return if $page eq 'index'; # toplevel
    -	foreach my $dir (reverse split("/", $page)) {
    +	if ($page =~ m{/$}){
    +		$page =~ s{/$}{};
    +		$path="../";
    +	}
    +
    +	while ($page =~ m!([^/]+)$!) {
    +		my $last = $1;
    +		$page =~ s!/?[^/]+$!!;
     		if (! $skip) {
     			$path.="../";
    -			unshift @ret, { url => $path.htmlpage($dir), page => pagetitle($dir) };
    +			my $target = abs2rel(htmlpage(bestlink($page, $last)), $page);
    +			unshift @ret, { url => $path.$target, page => pagetitle($last) };
     		}
     		else {
     			$skip=0;
    diff -urX ignorepats ikiclean/IkiWiki.pm ikidev/IkiWiki.pm
    --- ikiclean/IkiWiki.pm	2007-02-11 21:40:35.118406000 -0800
    +++ ikidev/IkiWiki.pm	2007-02-11 22:22:49.146071000 -0800
    @@ -188,6 +188,7 @@
     sub basename ($) { #{{{
     	my $file=shift;
     
    +	$file=~s!/$!!;
     	$file=~s!.*/+!!;
     	return $file;
     } #}}}
    @@ -214,12 +215,14 @@
     	my $type=pagetype($file);
     	my $page=$file;
     	$page=~s/\Q.$type\E*$// if defined $type;
    +	$page=~s#index$## if $page=~m{/index$};
     	return $page;
     } #}}}
     
     sub htmlpage ($) { #{{{
     	my $page=shift;
     
    +	return $page."index.html" if $page=~m{/$};
     	return $page.".html";
     } #}}}
     
    @@ -307,6 +310,7 @@
     	my $page=shift;
     	my $link=shift;
     	
    +	$page =~ s!/$!!;
     	my $cwd=$page;
     	if ($link=~s/^\/+//) {
     		# absolute links
    @@ -321,6 +325,9 @@
     		if (exists $links{$l}) {
     			return $l;
     		}
    +		if (exists $links{$l.'/'}){
    +			return $l.'/';
    +		}
     		elsif (exists $pagecase{lc $l}) {
     			return $pagecase{lc $l};
     		}
    @@ -351,6 +358,7 @@
     		$page=~s/__(\d+)__/&#$1;/g;
     	}
     	$page=~y/_/ /;
    +	$page=~s!/$!!;
     
     	return $page;
     } #}}}
    @@ -879,7 +887,7 @@
     
     	# relative matching
     	if ($glob =~ m!^\./!) {
    -		$from=~s!/?[^/]+$!!;
    +		$from=~s!/?[^/]*$!!;
     		$glob=~s!^\./!!;
     		$glob="$from/$glob" if length $from;
     	}

I independently implemented a similar, but smaller patch.
(It's smaller because I only care about rendering; not CGI, for example.)
The key to this patch is that "A/B/C" is treated as equivalent
to "A/B/C/index".
Here it is:  --Per Bothner

    --- IkiWiki/Render.pm~  2007-01-11 15:01:51.000000000 -0800
    +++ IkiWiki/Render.pm   2007-02-02 22:24:12.000000000 -0800
    @@ -60,9 +60,9 @@
            foreach my $dir (reverse split("/", $page)) {
                    if (! $skip) {
                            $path.="../";
    -                       unshift @ret, { url => $path.htmlpage($dir), page => pagetitle($dir) };
    +                       unshift @ret, { url => abs2rel(htmlpage(bestlink($page, $dir)), dirname($page)), page => pagetitle($dir) };
                    }
    -               else {
    +               elsif ($dir ne "index") {
                            $skip=0;
                    }
            }

    --- IkiWiki.pm~ 2007-01-12 12:47:09.000000000 -0800
    +++ IkiWiki.pm  2007-02-02 18:02:16.000000000 -0800
    @@ -315,6 +315,12 @@
                    elsif (exists $pagecase{lc $l}) {
                            return $pagecase{lc $l};
                     }
    +               else {
    +                   my $lindex = $l . "/index";
    +                   if (exists $links{$lindex}) {
    +                       return $lindex;
    +               }
    +               }
             } while $cwd=~s!/?[^/]+$!!;
     
            if (length $config{userdir} && exists $links{"$config{userdir}/".lc($link)}) {

Note I handle setting the url; slightly differently.
Also note that an initial "index" is ignored.  I.e. a
page "A/B/index.html" is treated as "A/B".

> This is actually a pretty cool hack. I'll have to think about
> whether I like it better than my way though :) --Ethan

---

How about doing the index stuff only on the output side? (Or does the latter patch do it? I haven't tried them.) That is, render every `foo.type` for the rendered types (mdwn etc.) as `foo/index.html`, generating links to `foo/` instead of `foo.html`, but not earlier than the point where the .html as presently appended to the page name. Then you just flip a build time option on an existing wiki without any changes to that, and the pages appear elsewhere. The `index.type` files might be left out of this scheme, though (and the top-level one, of course, has to). --[[tuomov]]

> Well, get around to wasting time on it after all, and [here's the patch](http://iki.fi/tuomov/use_dirs.diff). The `-use_dirs` option will cause everything to be rendered inside directories. There may still be some problems with it, that need looking into (it doesn't e.g. check for conflicts between foo/index.mdwn and foo.mdwn), but seems to work well enough for me... The patch also improves, I think, the parentlinks code a little, as it uses generic routines to actually find the target location now. The only places where the `use_dirs` option is used is `htmlpage`, in fact, although other specific kludges needed to be removed from other points in the code.