diff --git a/boot.php b/boot.php
index 1c558ef70..ac809cce6 100755
--- a/boot.php
+++ b/boot.php
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ require_once('include/taxonomy.php');
 require_once('include/channel.php');
 require_once('include/connections.php');
 require_once('include/account.php');
+require_once('include/zid.php');
 
 
 define ( 'PLATFORM_NAME',           'hubzilla' );
diff --git a/include/channel.php b/include/channel.php
index e35f453de..de685ab4c 100644
--- a/include/channel.php
+++ b/include/channel.php
@@ -1371,60 +1371,6 @@ function zat_init() {
 
 
 
-/**
- * @brief Adds a zid parameter to a url.
- *
- * @param string $s
- *   The url to accept the zid
- * @param boolean $address
- *   $address to use instead of session environment
- * @return string
- *
- * @hooks 'zid'
- *      string url - url to accept zid
- *      string zid - urlencoded zid
- *      string result - the return string we calculated, change it if you want to return something else
- */
-function zid($s,$address = '') {
-	if (! strlen($s) || strpos($s,'zid='))
-		return $s;
-
-	$m = parse_url($s);
-	$fragment = ((array_key_exists('fragment',$m) && $m['fragment']) ? $m['fragment'] : false);
-	if($fragment !== false)
-		$s = str_replace('#' . $fragment,'',$s);
-
-	$has_params = ((strpos($s,'?')) ? true : false);
-	$num_slashes = substr_count($s, '/');
-	if (! $has_params)
-		$has_params = ((strpos($s, '&')) ? true : false);
-
-	$achar = strpos($s,'?') ? '&' : '?';
-
-	$mine = get_my_url();
-	$myaddr = (($address) ? $address : get_my_address());
-
-	/**
-	 * @FIXME checking against our own channel url is no longer reliable. We may have a lot
-	 * of urls attached to out channel. Should probably match against our site, since we
-	 * will not need to remote authenticate on our own site anyway.
-	 */
-
-	if ($mine && $myaddr && (! link_compare($mine,$s)))
-		$zurl = $s . (($num_slashes >= 3) ? '' : '/') . $achar . 'zid=' . urlencode($myaddr);
-	else
-		$zurl = $s;
-
-	// put fragment at the end
-
-	if($fragment)
-		$zurl .= '#' . $fragment;
-
-	$arr = array('url' => $s, 'zid' => urlencode($myaddr), 'result' => $zurl);
-	call_hooks('zid', $arr);
-
-	return $arr['result'];
-}
 
 // Used from within PCSS themes to set theme parameters. If there's a
 // puid request variable, that is the "page owner" and normally their theme
diff --git a/include/hubloc.php b/include/hubloc.php
index b660c1019..17f921f67 100644
--- a/include/hubloc.php
+++ b/include/hubloc.php
@@ -1,29 +1,5 @@
 <?php /** @file */
 
-function is_matrix_url($url) {
-
-	static $remembered = [];
-
-	$m = @parse_url($url);
-	if($m['host']) {
-
-		if(array_key_exists($m['host'],$remembered))
-			return $remembered[$m['host']];
-
-		$r = q("select hubloc_url from hubloc where hubloc_host = '%s' and hubloc_network = 'zot' limit 1",
-			dbesc($m['host'])
-		);
-		if($r) {
-			$remembered[$m['host']] = true;
-			return true;
-		}
-		$remembered[$m['host']] = false;
-	}
-	return false;
-}
-
-
-
 function prune_hub_reinstalls() {
 
 	$r = q("select site_url from site where site_type = %d",
diff --git a/include/items.php b/include/items.php
index b1a83dfc2..4ac4d6049 100755
--- a/include/items.php
+++ b/include/items.php
@@ -290,78 +290,6 @@ function add_source_route($iid, $hash) {
 }
 
 
-/**
- * @brief preg_match function when fixing 'naked' links in mod item.php.
- *
- * Check if we've got a hubloc for the site and use a zrl if we do, a url if we don't.
- * Remove any existing zid= param which may have been pasted by mistake - and will have
- * the author's credentials. zid's are dynamic and can't really be passed around like
- * that.
- *
- * @param array $matches
- * @return string
- */
-function red_zrl_callback($matches) {
-	require_once('include/hubloc.php');
-	$zrl = is_matrix_url($matches[2]);
-
-	$t = strip_zids($matches[2]);
-	if($t !== $matches[2]) {
-		$zrl = true;
-		$matches[2] = $t;
-	}
-
-	if($matches[1] === '#^')
-		$matches[1] = '';
-	if($zrl)
-		return $matches[1] . '#^[zrl=' . $matches[2] . ']' . $matches[2] . '[/zrl]';
-
-	return $matches[1] . '#^[url=' . $matches[2] . ']' . $matches[2] . '[/url]';
-}
-
-/**
- * If we've got a url or zrl tag with a naked url somewhere in the link text,
- * escape it with quotes unless the naked url is a linked photo.
- *
- * @param array $matches
- * @return string
- */
-function red_escape_zrl_callback($matches) {
-
-	// Uncertain why the url/zrl forms weren't picked up by the non-greedy regex.
-
-	if((strpos($matches[3], 'zmg') !== false) || (strpos($matches[3], 'img') !== false) || (strpos($matches[3],'zrl') !== false) || (strpos($matches[3],'url') !== false))
-		return $matches[0];
-
-	return '[' . $matches[1] . 'rl' . $matches[2] . ']' . $matches[3] . '"' . $matches[4] . '"' . $matches[5] . '[/' . $matches[6] . 'rl]';
-}
-
-function red_escape_codeblock($m) {
-	return '[$b64' . $m[2] . base64_encode($m[1]) . '[/' . $m[2] . ']';
-}
-
-function red_unescape_codeblock($m) {
-	return '[' . $m[2] . base64_decode($m[1]) . '[/' . $m[2] . ']';
-}
-
-
-function red_zrlify_img_callback($matches) {
-	require_once('include/hubloc.php');
-	$zrl = is_matrix_url($matches[2]);
-
-	$t = strip_zids($matches[2]);
-	if($t !== $matches[2]) {
-		$zrl = true;
-		$matches[2] = $t;
-	}
-
-	if($zrl)
-		return '[zmg' . $matches[1] . ']' . $matches[2] . '[/zmg]';
-
-	return $matches[0];
-}
-
-
 /**
  * @brief Post an activity.
  *
diff --git a/include/text.php b/include/text.php
index fa16a16a1..12b37222b 100644
--- a/include/text.php
+++ b/include/text.php
@@ -837,14 +837,6 @@ function tag_sort_length($a,$b) {
 
 
 
-function strip_zids($s) {
-	return preg_replace('/[\?&]zid=(.*?)(&|$)/ism','$2',$s);
-}
-
-function strip_zats($s) {
-	return preg_replace('/[\?&]zat=(.*?)(&|$)/ism','$2',$s);
-}
-
 /**
  * @brief Quick and dirty quoted_printable encoding.
  *
@@ -1700,73 +1692,6 @@ function create_export_photo_body(&$item) {
 	}
 }
 
-/**
- * zidify_callback() and zidify_links() work together to turn any HTML a tags with class="zrl" into zid links
- * These will typically be generated by a bbcode '[zrl]' tag. This is done inside prepare_text() rather than bbcode()
- * because the latter is used for general purpose conversions and the former is used only when preparing text for
- * immediate display.
- *
- * Issues: Currently the order of HTML parameters in the text is somewhat rigid and inflexible.
- *    We assume it looks like \<a class="zrl" href="xxxxxxxxxx"\> and will not work if zrl and href appear in a different order.
- *
- * @param array $match
- * @return string
- */
-function zidify_callback($match) {
-	$is_zid = ((feature_enabled(local_channel(),'sendzid')) || (strpos($match[1],'zrl')) ? true : false);
-	$replace = '<a' . $match[1] . ' href="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
-	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
-
-	return $x;
-}
-
-function zidify_img_callback($match) {
-	$is_zid = ((feature_enabled(local_channel(),'sendzid')) || (strpos($match[1],'zrl')) ? true : false);
-	$replace = '<img' . $match[1] . ' src="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
-
-	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
-
-	return $x;
-}
-
-
-function zidify_links($s) {
-	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<a(.*?)href\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_callback',$s);
-	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<img(.*?)src\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_img_callback',$s);
-
-	return $s;
-}
-
-
-
-
-function zidify_text_callback($match) {
-	$is_zid = is_matrix_url($match[2]);
-	$replace = '<a' . $match[1] . ' href="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
-	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
-
-	return $x;
-}
-
-function zidify_text_img_callback($match) {
-	$is_zid = is_matrix_url($match[2]);
-	$replace = '<img' . $match[1] . ' src="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
-
-	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
-
-	return $x;
-}
-
-function zidify_text($s) {
-
-	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<a(.*?)href\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_text_callback',$s);
-	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<img(.*?)src\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_text_img_callback',$s);
-
-	return $s;
-
-
-}
-
 /**
  * @brief Return atom link elements for all of our hubs.
  *
diff --git a/include/zid.php b/include/zid.php
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ac6433e4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/include/zid.php
@@ -0,0 +1,232 @@
+<?php
+
+
+function is_matrix_url($url) {
+
+	// in-memory cache to avoid repeated queries for the same host
+	static $remembered = [];
+
+	$m = @parse_url($url);
+	if($m['host']) {
+
+		if(array_key_exists($m['host'],$remembered))
+			return $remembered[$m['host']];
+
+		$r = q("select hubloc_url from hubloc where hubloc_host = '%s' and hubloc_network = 'zot' limit 1",
+			dbesc($m['host'])
+		);
+		if($r) {
+			$remembered[$m['host']] = true;
+			return true;
+		}
+		$remembered[$m['host']] = false;
+	}
+	return false;
+}
+
+/**
+ * @brief Adds a zid parameter to a url.
+ *
+ * @param string $s
+ *   The url to accept the zid
+ * @param boolean $address
+ *   $address to use instead of session environment
+ * @return string
+ *
+ * @hooks 'zid'
+ *      string url - url to accept zid
+ *      string zid - urlencoded zid
+ *      string result - the return string we calculated, change it if you want to return something else
+ */
+
+function zid($s,$address = '') {
+	if (! strlen($s) || strpos($s,'zid='))
+		return $s;
+
+	$m = parse_url($s);
+	$fragment = ((array_key_exists('fragment',$m) && $m['fragment']) ? $m['fragment'] : false);
+	if($fragment !== false)
+		$s = str_replace('#' . $fragment,'',$s);
+
+	$has_params = ((strpos($s,'?')) ? true : false);
+	$num_slashes = substr_count($s, '/');
+	if (! $has_params)
+		$has_params = ((strpos($s, '&')) ? true : false);
+
+	$achar = strpos($s,'?') ? '&' : '?';
+
+	$mine = get_my_url();
+	$myaddr = (($address) ? $address : get_my_address());
+
+	/**
+	 * @FIXME checking against our own channel url is no longer reliable. We may have a lot
+	 * of urls attached to out channel. Should probably match against our site, since we
+	 * will not need to remote authenticate on our own site anyway.
+	 */
+
+	if ($mine && $myaddr && (! link_compare($mine,$s)))
+		$zurl = $s . (($num_slashes >= 3) ? '' : '/') . $achar . 'zid=' . urlencode($myaddr);
+	else
+		$zurl = $s;
+
+	// put fragment at the end
+
+	if($fragment)
+		$zurl .= '#' . $fragment;
+
+	$arr = array('url' => $s, 'zid' => urlencode($myaddr), 'result' => $zurl);
+	call_hooks('zid', $arr);
+
+	return $arr['result'];
+}
+
+
+function strip_zids($s) {
+	return preg_replace('/[\?&]zid=(.*?)(&|$)/ism','$2',$s);
+}
+
+function strip_zats($s) {
+	return preg_replace('/[\?&]zat=(.*?)(&|$)/ism','$2',$s);
+}
+
+
+/**
+ * zidify_callback() and zidify_links() work together to turn any HTML a tags with class="zrl" into zid links
+ * These will typically be generated by a bbcode '[zrl]' tag. This is done inside prepare_text() rather than bbcode()
+ * because the latter is used for general purpose conversions and the former is used only when preparing text for
+ * immediate display.
+ *
+ * Issues: Currently the order of HTML parameters in the text is somewhat rigid and inflexible.
+ *    We assume it looks like \<a class="zrl" href="xxxxxxxxxx"\> and will not work if zrl and href appear in a different order.
+ *
+ * @param array $match
+ * @return string
+ */
+function zidify_callback($match) {
+	$is_zid = ((feature_enabled(local_channel(),'sendzid')) || (strpos($match[1],'zrl')) ? true : false);
+	$replace = '<a' . $match[1] . ' href="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
+	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
+
+	return $x;
+}
+
+function zidify_img_callback($match) {
+	$is_zid = ((feature_enabled(local_channel(),'sendzid')) || (strpos($match[1],'zrl')) ? true : false);
+	$replace = '<img' . $match[1] . ' src="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
+
+	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
+
+	return $x;
+}
+
+
+function zidify_links($s) {
+	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<a(.*?)href\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_callback',$s);
+	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<img(.*?)src\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_img_callback',$s);
+
+	return $s;
+}
+
+
+
+
+function zidify_text_callback($match) {
+	$is_zid = is_matrix_url($match[2]);
+	$replace = '<a' . $match[1] . ' href="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
+	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
+
+	return $x;
+}
+
+function zidify_text_img_callback($match) {
+	$is_zid = is_matrix_url($match[2]);
+	$replace = '<img' . $match[1] . ' src="' . (($is_zid) ? zid($match[2]) : $match[2]) . '"';
+
+	$x = str_replace($match[0],$replace,$match[0]);
+
+	return $x;
+}
+
+function zidify_text($s) {
+
+	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<a(.*?)href\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_text_callback',$s);
+	$s = preg_replace_callback('/\<img(.*?)src\=\"(.*?)\"/ism','zidify_text_img_callback',$s);
+
+	return $s;
+
+
+}
+
+
+/**
+ * @brief preg_match function when fixing 'naked' links in mod item.php.
+ *
+ * Check if we've got a hubloc for the site and use a zrl if we do, a url if we don't.
+ * Remove any existing zid= param which may have been pasted by mistake - and will have
+ * the author's credentials. zid's are dynamic and can't really be passed around like
+ * that.
+ *
+ * @param array $matches
+ * @return string
+ */
+function red_zrl_callback($matches) {
+	require_once('include/hubloc.php');
+	$zrl = is_matrix_url($matches[2]);
+
+	$t = strip_zids($matches[2]);
+	if($t !== $matches[2]) {
+		$zrl = true;
+		$matches[2] = $t;
+	}
+
+	if($matches[1] === '#^')
+		$matches[1] = '';
+	if($zrl)
+		return $matches[1] . '#^[zrl=' . $matches[2] . ']' . $matches[2] . '[/zrl]';
+
+	return $matches[1] . '#^[url=' . $matches[2] . ']' . $matches[2] . '[/url]';
+}
+
+/**
+ * If we've got a url or zrl tag with a naked url somewhere in the link text,
+ * escape it with quotes unless the naked url is a linked photo.
+ *
+ * @param array $matches
+ * @return string
+ */
+
+function red_escape_zrl_callback($matches) {
+
+	// Uncertain why the url/zrl forms weren't picked up by the non-greedy regex.
+
+	if((strpos($matches[3], 'zmg') !== false) || (strpos($matches[3], 'img') !== false) || (strpos($matches[3],'zrl') !== false) || (strpos($matches[3],'url') !== false))
+		return $matches[0];
+
+	return '[' . $matches[1] . 'rl' . $matches[2] . ']' . $matches[3] . '"' . $matches[4] . '"' . $matches[5] . '[/' . $matches[6] . 'rl]';
+}
+
+function red_escape_codeblock($m) {
+	return '[$b64' . $m[2] . base64_encode($m[1]) . '[/' . $m[2] . ']';
+}
+
+function red_unescape_codeblock($m) {
+	return '[' . $m[2] . base64_decode($m[1]) . '[/' . $m[2] . ']';
+}
+
+
+function red_zrlify_img_callback($matches) {
+	require_once('include/hubloc.php');
+	$zrl = is_matrix_url($matches[2]);
+
+	$t = strip_zids($matches[2]);
+	if($t !== $matches[2]) {
+		$zrl = true;
+		$matches[2] = $t;
+	}
+
+	if($zrl)
+		return '[zmg' . $matches[1] . ']' . $matches[2] . '[/zmg]';
+
+	return $matches[0];
+}
+