Help talk:Links

=2008=

Linking to Category pages
How do I link to category or special pages? for example

Obviously is a different syntax.I want to link to that page.

211.47.123.21 - 07:40, 11 October 2008


 * There is an example of that on the Help:Links page here. Just add a colon: . Same trick for linking to image pages -- Harry Wood 18:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I did't catch that! Thanks a lot 211.47.123.21

Anchors, Internet Explorer 8.0 and w3c
I am not sure about this anchor links to jump to a section on the same site. It not work on mediawiki sites. But it work on w3c sites like http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/about.html, therefore what's the problem? --Lastwebpage 09:14, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

How to make mailto link do First Last 
I have not figured out how to get MediaWiki to let me do this. I tried [mailto:First%20Last%20] [mailto:%20First%20Last] [mailto:First%20Last ] [mailto: First%20Last] [mailto:foo@bar.com First%20Last] [mailto:foo@bar.com%20First%20Last First Last] [mailto:%20First%20Last First Last] [mailto:First%20Last%20 First Last] None of these works.

This workaround is as close as I could come: [mailto:(First%20Last)%20foo@bar.com First Last]

Dave Yost 21:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In this case  works and is displayed (as you wish) as [mailto:foo@bar.com First Last ]. The structure is generally the same as for normal external links:  . -- :bdk:  23:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think perhaps what Dave is after is for the mailto: to actually pass the recipient name to the mail program as well as the address. A standard html mailto: link (">) does do this in various clients, but is not actually compliant with [RFC1738]. Mediawiki insists on using the space to separate the link destination and link text ([mailto:An Example ] - hover to see "mailto:An" ) - which is actually "correct" behaviour. Jmb 14:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

How to link with a local file?
Hi there, does anyone know, how to link with a file on a local volume? e. g.  or   doesn't work. Thank you -Rob.


 * To allow links to local files (which may make sense in an intranet context), put this into your LocalSettings.php:
 * $wgUrlProtocols[] = "file:";

Spaces in PAGENAME

 * http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Links&diff=218021&oldid=218020 how to solve? TechControl 15:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Use the URL-encoded variant (PAGENAMEE). —Emufarmers(T 20:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * thanks a lot. TechControl 15:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Mailto: Spaces in Outlook Short Names
[mailto:Doe, John (EKDD/1) ] doesn't work, only the string Doe is transfered into the Outlook to:

Expml: [mailto:Doe, John (EKDD/1) ]

What shall I do, to make it work? --User: EnterpriseWiki

Answer: [mailto:Doe,John%20(EKDD/1) John Doe] [mailto:Doe,John%20(EKDD/1) John Doe]

Someone jnows a less cryptic version? --User: EnterpriseWiki

more problem with mailto - using 'subject' field
Is there a way to include subject fields and other options in a mailto link in mediawiki? The HTML syntax for mailto links would be text, but this obviously fails because any space in the subject field would be interpreted as the separator... and standard html doesn't work at all. Is there any workaround for this, or some feature of the software that I have overlooked? --89.207.208.9 11:02, 12 December 2008 (UTC) Carelesshx 11:03, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You must use "%20" instead of " " (space). Example:  is displayed as [mailto:foo@bar?subject=a%20subject]. I also had problems with special characters (Latin), so I had to use the hexadecimal values of ISO-8859-1 (ISO Latin 1) character encoding preceded by "%". I don't know if the characters are displayed correctly for everyone, but it worked for me. Example:   is displayed as [mailto:foo@bar?subject=informa%E7%F5es&body=test] -- 201.76.26.103 23:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

=2009=

Auto linking
Is there a good way to designate words or phrases that should automatically link to certain pages? For example if I have an auto-repair wiki and I want every occurence of the phrase "distributor cap" on any page to link to the "Distributor" page, is there a way to do this without manually assigning the link each time? --IP 13 January 2009
 * You can try this Extension:AutoLink

Internal Links in a new window
Does anyone know of a way (new syntax perhaps?) that allows for internal links to open up in another window? I prefer not to modify code that affects all internal links, only those that we want. Is this even possible? I know in html you can use target="_new" or "_blank" to  tags. Would love a Wikitext equivalent. Soonshort 09:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Mmmm, I also would like this feature. Where can I found an overview of feature requests? Timboliu 12:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Mmmm, me too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.149.209.52 (talk • contribs) 20 December 2011
 * Mmmm, me too.[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.55.240.5 (talk • contribs) 11 April 2012
 * Mmmm, me too.[3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.207.23.2 (talk • contribs) 10 February 2014

It is not possible with wiki code, as far as I know, but it can be done with JavaScript:

https://www.google.com/search?q=target=+_blank+javascript

You might find some easy copy-and-paste code at that search. When you find something you think may work for you, put it in your MediaWiki:Common.js. And, of course, report back the results of your research so others can benefit from it too. Badon (talk) 06:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * August 2016: same here, is this still not an option ? Can somebody with more experience change the mediawiki:common.js ?
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.132.168 (talk • contribs) 30 August 2016

Custom link title?
The default wikilink title is the target page title (this is undocumented). How do I specify a custom title that better matches the context? Example: at Bohm interpretation there is a wikilink to Copenhagen interpretation and the title is "Copenhagen interpretation". It would be much more informative to make the title "the state of every particle is described by a wavefunction". --Yecril 08:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Which link? Anyway, you can have that result with the state of every particle is described by a wavefunction . --Nemo bis 18:05, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Link to "Special:Allpages" with the namespace parm set
We are using Mediawiki 1.8.2. It's easy to determine an external link like http://etc that points to "all pages" with the namespace parameter set - i.e. to a dynamic list of all existing user pages or all categories in a given Wiki. Does this work in Wiki syntax too? How? Thanks. Burkhard 29 Oct 2009
 * Something like Special:Allpages/Category:? --Nemo bis 18:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that's it. Thanks a lot. Burkhard 20 Oct 2009

= 2010 =

Showing links on message pages
I want to create an internal link (to a specific wiki page) on a message page (MediaWiki:Badaccess-groups). So, when the user sees that page they will get a link to a page (access restriction) explaining more. When I add the link I see access restriction (bold, link: correct). But when a user who does not have access sees the page they see access restriction i.e. it looks to them like the nowiki tags are present.

Does anyone have a solution? --Robinson Weijman 09:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Please document the "Pipe trick"
Please document the "Pipe trick" on this page, if in no other way then by providing a simple example and linking to a fuller description. I found out about it only after I, embarrassingly, wrote an extension that does the same thing. If I missed the docs at Wikipedia and Meta, chances are I'm not the only one.

Thank you! Miranche 20:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * ✅. See [ revision 524098] . It only took 528 days. Badon (talk) 06:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Open a file with the appropriate software
Hello, how could we set to open a file with a specific software?

For example when I click on a link like it opens in MS-Word. But if I right click on it and save on my desktop, if I open it it appears as I want in Outlook. JackPotte 13:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

=2011=

Is it possible to display the content of one page on another page of same Wiki?
Hey there, I would like to have the content of one subpage of our Wiki to be displayed in a shorter version (perhaps headlines) in a table on our main page. Has anybody an idea how to do this. BTW I am not an expert....

Thanks! timsen, 16:55, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The operation is very basic: put the link of the big page into the small one between two pairs of accolades. Then, on the big page you can choose what to not display on the other ones, between ... . JackPotte 17:55, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * See Help:Templates and Meta Help:Template Badon 04:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Problem with double quotation marks inside title
Hey there, I've been looking for similar cases, but I haven't found anything on this yet.

I have an article with double straight quotation marks in it (Foo article in "foo section").

The problem is that whenever I create a reference for that article (for example)
 * My article

and then I save the page, the part that was between the double quotes disappears, so you will only have
 * My article

Could you please help me on this?

Thanks!

Fladei 04:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That shouldn't be happening. Do you have a link to your wiki?  If not, could you tell me what version you're running and whether you've implemented short URLs? —Emufarmers(T 06:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your help. It seems that this is part of the ampersand problem, so I will look on how to solve it this way.
 * Currently, this wiki is under an internal server environment, so there's no public address that would help in here.


 * The version we're running is MediaWiki	1.16.0, PHP 5.2.11 (apache2handler) and MySQL 5.5.8-log


 * Do you know of any other info that could help in here? - Fladei 15:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Just what's on that page. If you have root, though, you shouldn't be using mod_rewrite for this: just use one of the alias methods. —Emufarmers(T 21:51, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Never mind, I found that this is a bug on the FCK Editor. I just have to know how to fix it. Thanks! Fladei 19:13, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

External links without icons

 * External links without icons - is that possible using some standard markup? I want to save some space while putting a bunch of useful links into my navigation bar.
 * I found one workaround, which is not entirely a standard Wiki markup, but it works - ”plainlinks” class links don't have icon. At least that. :)
 * I added a new section that addresses using external links to link to internal pages. One of the examples shows how to use the plainlinks class. Enjoy. Badon 04:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Possibility to create customized links
Is it possible to create a new customized link category to my corporate address book? charlie johnson ?

List of prefixes for wikis registered in advance (to use in InterWiki links)?
Is there some list you can look in if you want to find the prefix to a specific wiki that is registered in advance (as it says in the section about Interwiki links), such as Wikipedia, Commons, Wikia or this site (MediaWiki)? That would be really useful, especially since I in fact don't know any way at all to find the prefix to a specific wiki. For example, now I would like to link an article on the OpenGL Wiki, but I can't use an Interwiki link since I don't know the prefix. —Kri 13:49, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Never mind, I think I found it ;) —Kri 13:57, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Also I found you can get a list specific to a site from the interwikimap property of the siteinfo meta query API, for example [//en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=interwikimap the English Wikipedia]. Vadmium 13:03, 11 October 2011 (UTC).

ThaiNM
ThaiNM

Pseudolinks
Need to put this in the internal links table once bug 33437 is fixed (it doesn't work yet):

Badon 23:42, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

=2012=

PAGENAMEE
In the External links section, it says:

Are you sure it should be PAGENAMEE with two E's? Or should it be PAGENAME? Can someone check and correct this?? --TJRana 22:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It is correct. That form does URL encoding. For example, with, "Help talk:Links" would become "Help%20talk:Links", with the space in the page name converted into an URL-friendly %20 - If the documentation is confusing or incomplete about that, it should be improved. Badon 23:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I updated the documentation to be a little more clear, with a link that explains that detail of the example. Let me know if that helps. Badon 23:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

How do I create and anchor on a page without using heading?
I'm making an EXTREMELY looong table on my wiki and would like to be able to create a table of contents at the top of the page to jump to certain sections. How do I create and anchor on a page without using heading? My wiki doesn't have &lt;html> or &lt;a name="xxx"> available to me to do it like I would on a normal web page... -- Technical 13 (talk) 20:14, 24 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I found this for you: m:Help:Anchors. It should probably be moved here, eventually. Badon (talk) 03:29, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Adding tel: link
Hi: I am trying to include tel: links into my MediaWiki installation. They should work just like a mailto:foo@foo.bar link, but for telephone numbers. So, they should look like tel:+1234567890. When used on a mobile device these tel: links are opened by the telephone application and can be called directly from the website.

I would like to have the following structure:

Phone: [tel:+1234567890 +1 (123) 456789-0]

I have been looking around the source files to locate the one which defines mailto links for example, but couldn't locate it.

Anyone of you got an idea how to accomplish this?

Thanks Tuluqaruk (talk) 08:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree, this should be simple to do, but I don't know of a simple way to do it. However, there are 2 more complicated ways to do it. The simplest is probably with Extension:Widgets. Also, Extension:Semantic MediaWiki can do it with its built in telephone number type. I hope that helps. Badon (talk) 10:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Easy enough, just add tel: to the list of allowed protocols. Add array_push( $wgUrlProtocols, "tel:" ); to your Localsettings.php.


 * That works. Thanks!  I added it to the $wgUrlProtocols array rather than use array_push (I assume either way would work).  Next step is automatically make phone numbers (and mailto: links) external links the same way http:// links are handled.  Anyone know how to do that?  Potrod (talk) 21:33, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

tel: is in the default $wgUrlProtocols since 1.24 Jasonblewis (talk) 22:54, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Long File: link does not work with pipe trick
Hi all

I have a document on which I have this code:

It should show as "Documento Original" but shows up as "Archivo:Work Instructions Mobile Phones Nokia Windows 8 phones Set-up guide for Windows 8.ppt"

Any idea?

--12:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)~


 * Documento original
 * and
 * Documento original
 * Both work here... Do you have a link to where it is not working? — T13  ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * No, I'm sorry, it is a private wiki. Do you think it may be some config option or PHP parameter?
 * Thanks
 * --212.163.169.150 16:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I don't care to speculate. That would require me to make assumptions that I'm not willing to make.  Perhaps someone that has actually worked on the core can help you. Good luck! — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 18:30, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've just solved the same problem in our wiki by adding ":" in front of the link text, just like you do when linking to Categories. Try:
 * Documento original
 * I'm not sure this is this the expected behaviour, but it worked for me.
 * Saludos, --Machin.benjamin (talk) 21:17, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

%DATE%, %TIME%
link is not working with "%DA"? --Jmkim dot com (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * %DATE% %SDATE% %DATES% %DATE %DAT_E %DA_TE %D_ATE %TIME%

Reverse pipe trick
Is the Reverse pipe trick officially supported ? Shoudl it be added to this page ?

Zebulon84 (talk) 16:24, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

=2014=

CSS images for links broken
In the External link icons section, all the CSS-added icons are now SVG yet the links still point to the old PNGs (which 404). Chris W. (talk | WP profile)  11:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree that this was confusing. I just noticed on my self-hosted wiki that all external links now use a single SVG icon. No more content (email, pdf, etc.) specific icons. It was removed in April 2014. Here's the commit.
 * Regarding the documentation on this page, it appears that this page is a translatable page, which I am not familiar enough with to edit. Ckoerner (talk) 20:11, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I've blanked that out-of-date section, as there's no relevance for it being there. Rob Kam (talk) 14:21, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

File: vs. Media: links
I haven't been able to find any documentation on the difference between using  and. Initially thought them to be equivalent, but these are some different behaviours I have noticed on our wiki (in these examples 'uploaded file.txt' is an existing file (blue link) while 'not a valid file.txt' is not (red link)):


 * renders as  in blue (OK)
 * renders as  in red (OK)
 * renders as  in blue (OK)
 * renders as  in red (OK)
 * renders as  in blue (NOT OK - alternate text not displayed)
 * renders as  in red (OK)
 * renders as  in blue (OK)
 * renders as  in red (OK)

Is this the default behaviour? If so, I think it should be better documented somewhere.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or comments. Rbirmann (talk) 15:25, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Creating a new article
I must be a bit stupid. I have spent quite a bit of time trying to find out how to paste an article which i have written as a Word file on here. I can't see where to start, as there is no Sandbox.

Should i put it on one of my blogs first and then link to that?

The article i want to put up is The English Spelling System i.e. a much simpler explanation of it than is given under English Orthography on the main Wiki.

Masha Bell

Interlink from Wikipedia
How link from Wikipedia to MediaWiki using internal links (ie. in a similar way to link from here to Wikipedia using . --Lagoset (talk) 11:41, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Use prefix . Link to this page :   — Zebulon84 (talk) 08:41, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

=2015=

How to write permanent anchor of sections?
With a hierarchy like this:

created
When people link to account.created, it would be Page#created_2, right?

But when there's something added in between, like this:

created
The anchor of account.created would then become #created_3, right? All the links to Page#created_2 before the change would now lead to the wrong section, that is category.created.

Is there any way to fix or work around this problem? Can we make the section anchor permanent once created? So new sections of the same title would have new anchors regardless of its location?

Dotspire (talk) 07:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

VE
I tried to use VE to add a link from an article (Arno Schmidt)in SE to one in EN. The SE article is new and has no interwiki links as far as I know. When I chose the language and typed in the title (the same as the SE title), I got this message, which I don't understand: "The page you wanted to link with is already attached to an item on the central data repository which links to Arno Schmidt on this site. Items can only have one page per site attached. Please choose a different page to link with." This is far from simple English, e.g., what central data repository? Is it in SE Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Google, the German national library? why can't I attach another site? etc.Kdammers (talk) 13:51, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

External link to section below closed div section
I am attempting to place a link to a section that is below a closed div section on the same page and when i click the link it just drops to the bottom of the page instead of the section needed. anyone know how to resolve this?

Example: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhmechanic (talk • contribs) 1 September 2015

Link to search results
I would like to have linked keywords on my pages with the links leading users to other pages with the same keyword. I have a way to accomplish this but it's not very elegant. What I do is create a link to the search function, embedding the keyword itself in the parameters. The result is that the user is taken to a search results page based on the keyword.

Specifically, here is the string I'm using:

https://mySite.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=***&fulltext=Search&profile=all

...where "***" is my keyword.

Any thoughts? Is there a better way to accomplish something like this?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wajohnst (talk • contribs) 11 September 2015


 * I did something similar on my site's disambiguation template. I found a slightly better solution using some magic words:  [/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=default&search=&fulltext=Search search]
 * There is probably a better way (and hopefully a way to do it using an internal link rather than external). But at least this way you wouldn't need to enter a static keyword in the link.  Hope this helps for your purposes.  Potrod (talk) 21:41, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

=2016=

How do I add a link to the top right links?
I want to add 2 links to the top right of the wiki. Reason is a language select for the wiki. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.91.200.233 (talk • contribs) 8 September 2016

Help:Links
In this section it is said: "wherever you like in the page" It may have to be " wherever you link in the page" or not? --Manorainjan (talk) 12:36, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Solved by rephrase.... -- Manorainjan  20:35, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

=2017=

Handling of entities in page titles
I noticed the following while fiddling around with the Usain Bolt article on Wikipedia.

Markup:

Result:


 * 4 × 100 metres relay

Strangely the link still works, but the non-breaking spaces do not survive to the rendered link text (opposite in both regards to naive intuition).

It wouldn't be a bad thing if nbsp entity was defined as an alias for regular space in the page name, but the nbsps were preserved in the rendered link text. Either way, the handling of entities in link targets could be better documented. MaxEnt (talk) 02:15, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

External links on same server
We have some 'external links' from our wiki (e.g. https://example.com/wiki/ ) to non-wiki pages on the same server, e.g. Tutorial.

However, the 'refreshLinks.php' script does not update the 'external links' table; and therefore Special:LinkSearch does not work.

Is this expected behavior? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Berbo (talk • contribs) 24 August 2017


 * As suggested when you edit this page, support questions should be directed to Project:Support desk (the easiest way) or the [//lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l mediawiki-l mailing list] (through e-mail). - dcljr (talk) 06:18, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Escape the double quote symbol in page title

 * How to transform the external link contains double quote symbols in page title e.g. regex - MySQL REGEXP word boundaries <: >: and double quotes - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18901704/mysql-regexp-word-boundaries-and-double-quotes into MediaWiki link format? Thanks for your time! --Planetoid (talk) 04:34, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Please post your question at Project:Support desk, as it (almost certainly) will not be answered here. - dcljr (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Bug in external link with quotes
Example  ignores URL after first quote, so the link not work. See: So...? It is a bug. Perhaps Mediawiki need to fix the bug and the HELP pages explain something. --Krauss (talk) 22:12, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Free link https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q="Débora%20Maria"
 * Link translated LINK
 * The double-quote character is generally not allowed (or at least is discouraged) in URLs. This is not just a MediaWiki thing. You can use  in place of  :
 * https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%22Débora%20Maria%22
 * See Percent encoding for more information. - dcljr (talk) 03:35, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Redlink Feature Request: Show "What links here?" for Redlinks
Not sure if this is the correct place for me to post this feature request. If not, please advise me on how to submit this in the correct place.

The feature request is that when clicking on a Redlink (which takes the user to the "Create page" view) the UI should show which pages link to the Redlink. This can make it easier for the user creating the page to find relevant information about the topic they're creating. This feature could also help identify Redlinks which might need disambiguation pages, if Redlinks with different meanings and usages point to the same page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mapmaker345 (talk • contribs) 21 December 2018
 * If you follow a redlink, the "Creating…" page already contains a link to "What links here" in the sidebar (just like any other regular page on the wiki). Not as prominent as you might wish, perhaps, but it's there. Feature requests like this require creating a new "task" at the Wikimedia Phabricator, since this would presumably require changes to the MediaWiki code. However, instead of trying to get the "What links here" page list itself to appear on the "Creating…" page, as you seem to be requesting, it might be more realistic to try to get a more noticeable link to "What links here" into the "You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet" message that appears at the top of each "Creating…" page. That message is provided by MediaWiki:Newarticletext on each wiki. I believe Support is the place to suggest changes to the default (English) text for these kinds of messages (assuming you want it to affect "all" MediaWiki wikis). - dcljr (talk) 03:59, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Link to file
I have a PDF file that I have uploaded to my MediaWiki instance. The link  links to the file detail page just fine. Is there a way to have a link that opens the file itself in a new tab (not just link to the file detail page)?