aunant - I'd made a note that you were able to use variable with links in the past on CONF-27342.

This a limitation of variables and attributes on links, or for use in macro parameters.

I just reproduced the problem w variables with Conf 5.0.1 and Source Editor 1.1.0.

Thanks for the information Craig. After a couple of more tests, I can confirm that the variables are always getting broken if the template is edited with source editor! Even if I let the list untouched. And the list is appearing to the new pages created from the template.

We are running Confluence 4.3.7 and Source Editor 1.0.6 and I am trying to fix our customers broken templates. They were working fine in 3.5 with a workaround mentioned in https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-3324 but at the moment we are not going to get very far with Confluence anymore. I tried to use variables in links w source editor but probably need to check the 5.0.

The use case goes roughly as:
1. Create a pile of pages
2. For every page, generate hyperlinks according to values assigned to variables

In 3.5 wikimarkup it worked like this: Link

aunant - the list at the top declares the variables for use in the template (an stores information such as list values for list types of variables). I wouldn't recommend deleting them as they do serve a purpose, and are not visible when viewing the template or editing in the rich text editor.

In 5.0 a earlier of Confluence removing this has the side effects you describe. In the next release, 5.1, the editor is much more tolerant of missing declarations so the experience should be better. Let us know if you still find any unexpected behaviour once this version is released.

Oops, after a deeper look, it seems that the variables lost their functionality after editing the template (removing the list) with source editor. The variables are still visible in the template but I am not able to use them while creating a new page. Also they are not listed in the Variables list. If someone succeeds to to reproduce this, I'd suggest you to re-open the issue since the variables are crucial feature on working with templates.

Now the source editor works fine with templates, but after editing the template with source editor, all variables are added as unordered list to the beginning of the page. Slightly annoying although the unnecessary list is easy to remove, and it seems not to appear anymore again.

Thank you very much!!!