Is it possible to give an external image URL, must the image be local? One use case would be displaying *badges*, like [[the number of stars|https://img.shields.io/github/stars/joeyh/ikiwiki.svg]] of a [[github project|http://github.com/joeyh/ikiwiki]], but ``\[[!img https://img.shields.io/github/stars/joeyh/ikiwiki.svg]]`` does not work: [[!img https://img.shields.io/github/stars/joeyh/ikiwiki.svg]]. --[[Louis|spalax]]
> Eventually wrote my own plugin: [[plugins/contrib/rimg]]. --[[Louis|spalax]]
+
+>> All the markup formats supported by ikiwiki can do raw HTML (possibly
+>> filtered), so you can use `<img>` for basic remote images; or you can
+>> use your chosen markup format's image syntax, like
+>> !\[some stars](https://img.shields.io/github/stars/joeyh/ikiwiki.svg)
+>> for Markdown. I don't think ikiwiki directives should duplicate markup
+>> formats' features unless it makes a significant difference to functionality
+>> or usability. --[[smcv]]
+
+>>> I totally agree. I never think about using HTML in my markdown documents,
+>>> and I did not know the `!\[Alt text](image url)`. Anyway, this plugin took
+>>> me less than one hour to write and publish; I will delete it soon.
+>>>
+>>> Anyway, thanks for your answer. --[[Louis|spalax]]
+
+>>>> Considering how limited Markdown is, I frequently struggle with
+>>>> this `img` limitation as well. My last fight was adding a caption
+>>>> to an image. Sure, this can be done by hand, but I stumbled upon
+>>>> Ikiwiki's lack of CSS support for `figcaption`. And it's kind of
+>>>> annoying to have to write all that `<figure>` stuff by hand when
+>>>> there's a `caption` parameter to the `img` tag... It would sure
+>>>> be useful to be able to reference external URLs, even if it means
+>>>> thumbnails are turned off... --[[anarcat]]