Help:External link icons

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

External links usually display an icon at the end of the link. CSS is used to check for certain filename extensions or URI schemes and apply an icon specific to that file type, based on the selected skin.[1]

In the default skin on desktop (Vector), en.Wikipedia uses only two external link icons; one for PDF documents and the other for all other external links. Some other skins use additional icons.

This page contains example URLs to demonstrate the link icons. The displayed icon only depends on the URL itself. It is not checked whether a file of that type is actually at the link. The examples here do not link to real files.

Explanation

MediaWiki software detects URI schemes and/or filename extensions to create a link; thus links without a URI will not have an external link applied. MediaWiki does not attempt to detect any part of the URL to create a link, such as www, which many websites do not use in the URL.

The standard Wikipedia skin, Vector, shows only PDF icons, as does Cologne Blue. Modern, MonoBook and Timeless show a full set of filename extensions icons and some URI scheme icons; Minerva (mobile) shows none. Icons are defined in the CSS for each skin except for the PDF icon, which is displayed if "pdf" is anywhere in the filename extension.[a]

Filename extension icons are displayed only if the extension matches the text. Filename extension icons have precedence over URI scheme icons. Internet Explorer may show an empty space or misplaced icon if the page is rendered with a line wrap inside the link text. Link icons do not adhere to accessibility standards, since alt text cannot be added.

Example

More information Type, File extension ...
Use these links to view this page with a different skin:
TypeFile extensionSample link
Portable Document Format.pdf .PDF, .pdf# .PDF# .pdf? .PDF?http://example.org/test.pdf
Audio Video Interleave.avi .AVIhttp://example.org/test.avi
MPEG-1.mpg .MPG .mpeg .MPEGhttp://example.org/test.mpg
Ogg.ogm .OGMhttp://example.org/test.ogm
MIDI.MID .midi .MIDhttp://example.org/test.mid
MP3.MP3http://example.org/test.mp3
Ogg Vorbis.OGGhttp://example.org/test.ogg
Waveform Audio File Format .WAV*http://example.org/test.wav
Windows Media Audio.wma .WMAhttp://example.org/test.wma
TypeURI schemeSample link
Internet Relay Chatirc:// ircs://irc://example.org
File Transfer Protocolftp://ftp://example.org
Network News Transfer Protocolnews:news:example.org
mailtomailto:mailto:example@example.org
HTTP Securehttps://https://example.org/test.html
Apache Subversionsvn://svn://example.org/
Bitcoinbitcoin:bitcoin:1BitQEtcoxAnViwUYX9k6KupmmsEfWrGnr
FTPSftps://ftps://example.org/
Geo URIgeo:geo:37.786971,-122.399677
Gitgit://git://example.org/
Gophergopher://gopher://example.org
Hypertext Transfer Protocolhttp://http://example.org
Magnet URI schememagnet://(stub)
Multimedia Messaging Servicemms://mms://example.org/
NASA World Windworldwind://worldwind://example.org/
Network News Transfer Protocolnntp://nntp://example.org/
Secure Shellssh://ssh://example.org/
Secure Session Initiation Protocolsips://sips://example.org/
Session Initiation Protocolsip://sip://example.org/
Short Message Servicesms:sms:1
SSH File Transfer Protocolsftp://sftp://example.org/
Telephonetel:tel:1
Telnettelnet://telnet://example.org/
Uniform resource nameurn:urn:isbn:0451450523
XMPPxmpp://xmpp://example.org/
Close

Hiding link icons

A link icon can be hidden with the plainlinks class or {{Plain link}}, but this is not advisable.

<span class="plainlinks">http://example.org/test.pdf</span>

Custom link icons

Custom icons can be added by editing Special:MyPage/skin.css (current skin only) or Special:MyPage/common.css (all skins). For example, to add an icon for Excel files:

#content a[href$=".xls"].external,
#content a[href$=".XLS"].external,
#content a[href$=".xlsx"].external,
#content a[href$=".XLSX"].external {
    background: url("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Page_white_excel.png") center right no-repeat; padding-right: 18px;
}

When successfully updated, this link will show an Excel icon:

http://example.org/test.xls

The markup detects file extensions .xls or .xlsx with both upper and lower case. The image must be 16 pixels wide. The image link must be from http://upload.wikimedia.org. To get this link, go to the file page and click on the image to open it without the file description, then copy the URL.

To remove a default icon, simply add the CSS with no URL. For example, to remove the padlock icon when viewing secure links:

#content a[href ^="https://"].external {
    background: center right no-repeat; 
    padding-right: 18px;
}

To remove all the default icons, use this CSS:

#content a.external {
    background: none !important;
    padding: 0 !important;
}

Bugs

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to External link icons.

Notes

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