Template talk:Australian dollar

Noting something for possible use later

Today I discovered that {{A$}} wasn't linking as it should to Australian dollar. Somewhat strangely, this must have been the case since this edit, which was made in June 2010, and which nobody has noticed until now. Despite later discussion at WT:AUSTYLE#Currency abbreviation revisited, nobody seems to have noticed that the template wasn't linking as per the WP:AUSTYLE currency statement that was agreed to and the template documentation. I've fixed the template for now, but I also discovered a discussion at Category talk:Currency templates#Overlinking that seems relevant. Although there has been no attempt to stop this template linking in the ensuing 2 months, probably because it already wasn't linking, I thought it best to note all this for future reference, should the need arise. The upshot is that since there is consensus at WT:AUSTYLE to have this template link, and this is reflected in WP:AUSTYLE, no changes should be made to stop linking without first consulting the Australian project. --AussieLegend (talk) 00:11, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't link=True work?

It's gotta be "yes"? why can't "True" also work? and why does it haft to be lower case "yes"? why why??? Anthony2106 (talk) 15:18, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When I added that feature in 2013, I was copying the same parameters among a lot of currency templates and other templates. |link=yes was common to many templates, so it was an obvious choice. Making every template use similar parameters makes it easier to remember which template uses which parameter. On the flip side, we could make all templates support all variations of "yes", "true", "active", "link" and whatever other word of the month comes up - plus their upper/lowercase variations like "true", "True", "TRUE". That's a lot of work that needlessly complicates the template code (making a difficult editing job even more difficult - just look at the template source to see this). And trying to make all the templates by different authors agree is also hard work.

Is there a pressing need to have "true"? Stepho talk 23:41, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No I just got used to using {{plot|section=True}}. Maybe there should be a template the returns true or false from a string and that template could be used in all the other templates that need a True/False, that way we could add all the variations one time and reuse them in other templates, or would that be too slow or something. Anthony2106 (talk) 02:28, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A common yes/no/true/false template is a good idea. Not sure where to raise the idea though. But to play devil's advocate, some studies say that allowing too many variations just makes it more complicated to support - eg bot's modifying articles would now have to know about all variations instead of just yes/no. Stepho talk 02:41, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But the bots can use the same words as the yes/no/true/false template and this could be asked on the village pump as that's for more complex questions, at least that's what Wikipedia:Questions says. Anthony2106 (talk) 03:23, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After asking the village pump I learnt there is a yesno template it's called {{yesno}}. That should be used instead. Anthony2106 (talk) 03:46, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What people usually do (nowadays?) is to interpret any value passed to the parameter as true by using the #if parser function. What people also do is create metatemplates so all variations of the reused code update the variants as well. The latter would indeed be time-consuming, though. Aaron Liu (talk) 04:12, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aaron Liu is that better then using {{yesno}}? Anthony2106 (talk) 12:06, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The metatemplate would use yesno. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry i'm really tired what do you mean by metatemplate? Anthony2106 (talk) 13:06, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A template used to make templates. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you don’t want to check “no” values (which is usually true since editors otherwise usually wouldn’t use the parameter), yes. Sorry, I was also tired and didn’t realize you replied to my first part. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Link by default?

In most contexts I’d imagine it would be advantageous to the the currency symbols link to the Australian dollar page by default (as {{currency}} does) by setting the default value for link= to ‘yes’ as opposed to the value being an empty string by default (resulting in a unlinked A$ sign). In the case where linking is unwanted link=no would still be able to be set. Any options?
– MrAussieGuy (Talk) 21:02, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your proposal makes sense if the template is used only once in an article. But if used multiple times then only the first instance should link. I would leave it like it is. Stepho talk 23:27, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

£, s, d?

When describing amounts spent in Australia pre decimalisation, is it correct to use {{GBP|##}} instead? Anothersignalman (talk) 15:36, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No. {{GBP}} superficially displays the same as Aussie pounds. But it links to the British Pound, not the Australian Pound. Even if you disable that, in the future it might have new features added like automatic conversion to US dollars (from British Pounds) and that would be a wrong value. Or it might have a new feature like a tooltip displaying the name British Pounds and/or currency conversion.

Much better to have a new template. It would probably be a simple copy of {{GBP}} with the obvious name changes.

Also be aware that {{GBP}} is for modern, decimal pounds and does not handle shillings, etc.

Might be simpler for such a rarely used currency to just type it by hand. Stepho talk 23:16, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to GBP isn't necessarily a bad thing since the two were almost always defined as equivalent - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australian_currency

Agree separation would be ideal, but is that the short term goal or would a patch be good enough for now? Anothersignalman (talk) 05:51, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Stupid me, I looked a little further and found {{Australian pound}}. Much better to use that or its alias, {{A£}}. They even handle shillings and pence. Luckily, I was born the year we went decimal (complete with round 50 cent coins) but my dad tells his story of paying for stuff in pounds and getting decimal change in that first year. Stepho talk 11:04, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'm converting my contributions from the last six weeks or so now. Is there a way to force the template to add commas as thousands separators per the GBP template, or do those need to be done manually? Anothersignalman (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have never used it before. But it's documentation says it simply displays whatever you put in it. Which implies adding commas by hand by hand. Or you can use {{val}} but that gets more complex.

Eg 1, {{Australian pound|400,000}} displays as £400,000 .

Eg 2, {{Australian pound|{{val|400000}}}} displays as £400000 .

Eg 3, {{Australian pound|{{val|400000|fmt=commas}}}} displays as £400,000 . Stepho talk 00:23, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]