Whilst this idea has been flagged as 'will not implement'... It is possible to build a custom handler that does this, which would grab whatever fields you needed and append them to a target URL the user is taken to. That said, it is not good practice to include personal details in URL parameters... a better solution would be to pass over a constiutent system record ID and do a server-side call from the web form to load the details securely.

Absolutely

Yep! Convenience is helpful particularly when typing is challenging.

Making our supporters experience easier and more streamlined... absolutely necessary!

No, this does NOT work, I've tried it. 

1. As soon as you go back into view mode, the html editor mungs up the code.
2. Even if you find a way to edit the HTML code directly WITHOUT using the BBIS editor (I have a customization that allows me to do this), when you go to send the email it will tell you that the "Server tag is not valid" - because the HTML can't be parsed.

Adding some non-image merge tag functionality would be very nice.  

For the record, it doesn't appear that this workaround currently works as of 4.0 SP19. The brackets around the img tag get encoded and therefor it doesn't get treated like a merge tag.

This has been requested again in a new Support case. The BBIS administrator would like to use the LookupID as a URL parameter. It is possible to add the Merge Field value to a URL by carefully editing the HTML code:

Note that this does not work for image tags.

1) Using the graphic editor, paste the beginning of your URL (everything before the parameter).

2) Add your merge field directly after this, with no spaces. Paste the remainder of your URL after this, with no spaces.

3) Click the View tab, then the Code tab.

4) Locate the HTML for your merge field. Note that it begins as an img tag, preventing hard-coding as an image or aliased link.

5) Send this email to yourself (Test Emails will not get the constituent information into the Merge Field). Note that the merge field now appears correctly in the URL parameter, and the full URL is displayed correctly. Most email clients will turn this URL into a clickable URL. It just won't be a user-friendly alias or picture.