7. IMAGEMAPS

Imagemaps allow you to have a graphic with "hot spots", which are areas of the graphic that take you to other URLs. You may implement either a "service-side" imagemap (which is compatible with most all graphical browsers) or a "client-side" imagemap (which has better performance and navigation but is not compatible with older browsers). It's good design policy to implement an imagemap as both "server side" (for browser compatibility) and "client side" (for performance and user link feedback).

Here's an HTML example of how to display a server-side imagemap from your web page. This example assumes that the map file and graphic file are both located in the "web" directory.

<A HREF="mymap.map"><IMG SRC="mygraphic.gif" ISMAP BORDER=0></A>

"mymap.map" is the map file created by an imagemap software utility describing the different regions of the graphic and the URLs that they link to. Be sure to use the full URL of the link for each region. Each region will have a line in the map file such as this: rect http://www.<yourdomain>/filename.html 3,0 78,80

"mygraphic.gif" is the image itself.

BORDER=0 is necessary if you don't want the web browser to draw a border around your graphic.

Just so you know: Our web server doesn't require that you use the old NCSA "/cgi-bin/imagemap" script, but it is supported.

"Client side" imagemaps offer improved functionality, but are only supported by newer browsers. Luckily ISMAP (server side) and USEMAP (client side) tags can be used together without any problem. This provides you and your visitors with the best of both worlds.

For more information on "client side" image maps, see URL: http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/html/96/40/index2a.html