I use a quotation template in my wiki and for years it's been bugging me that external links don't always show up as they should, when used within templates. More often than not a simple {{{1}}} or {{{2}}} occur instead of the expected external link.

Now it seems I've traced what seems to be the root of the problem.

A URL like this one : http://web.archive.org/web/20061219205042/http://www.dis-danmark.dk/sydfyn/H...

works well : [ http://web.archive.org/web/20061219205042/http://www.dis-danmark.dk/sydfyn/H...] shows up as a correct external link showcasing "source" highlighted in light blue.

A URL like this one : http://www.dis-sydfyn.dk/viewpage.php?page_id=4

does not work : [http://www.dis-sydfyn.dk/viewpage.php?page_id=4 source] shows simply as {{{2}}}

The differences in the two URLs are the use of the characters "?" and "=" in the latter case. If these are replaced by "/" the external link is highlighted, but of course won't lead one anywhere.

Case in question : http://notatwiki.dk/index.php?title=Rejsen_til_Amerika

The template itself is pretty straightforward. It uses to variables and contains only this bit of HTML and MediaWiki markup :

<blockquote class="toccolours" style="line-height: 1.5em;"> <div style="text-align=left";>{{{1}}}</div> <div style="text-align: right; font-style:normal;">{{{2}}}</div> </blockquote>"

Any ideas for a remedy to make these URL's work in templates?

Raw links seem(!) to work regardless of what characters they contain, so the problem seems related to the [ ] containment of the URL.

Yours Sincerely, Morten Blaabjerg

-- Fri software (fri som i ytringsfrihed, ikke som i gratis) er efter min mening et af de allervigtigste spørgsmål i vores tid. Jeg støtter derfor Free Software Foundations arbejde for udbredelsen af fri software : http://fsf.org/

Læs mere om hvorfor dette er så vigtigt her : http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html