Re: LYNX-DEV Can Lynx do anything with ISMAPs

[Scott McGee (Personal)]

William Burrow <address@hidden> writes:
>
>Since I will be designing one of those ISMAP thingies, I would be very 
>interested in this USEMAP.  Where to find more info please.  

William,

For an example of using both ISMAP (server side image map) and USEMAP
(client side image map), you can look at the new homepage I have been
working on for our site. It is at http://www.slcc.edu/index2.html and
contains two image maps at the top.

I use a Windows (PC) tool called mapedit (availible as shareware off the
net) to create the maps. It saves the client side map in a template HTML
file, and saves the server side map in a .map file. You have a choice of
either NCSA or CERN style server maps. It is a pretty good tool.

The trick to using both client and server side mapping is to set up the
client map inside the server map link. Smart clients will use the client
map by default, and those that can't fall back on the server map.

For example, for straight server side maping, you would have something 
like this in your HTML:

<A HREF="http://www.slcc.edu/cgi-bin/imagemap/maps/hp_menu.map";>
<IMG SRC="http://www.slcc.edu/maps/hp_menu.gif"; HEIGHT=252
WIDTH=187 ALT="[Menu]" BORDER="0" ALIGN="middle" ISMAP></A>

specifying that map file is in /maps/ht_menu.map from the server docs 
directory. By contrast, a client side map would be:

<IMG SRC="http://www.slcc.edu/maps/hp_menu.gif"; HEIGHT=252
WIDTH=187 ALT="[Menu]" BORDER="0" ALIGN="middle" USEMAP="#hp_menu">

with the map defined within a <MAP> tag somewhere in the HTML file (with
a name of hp_menu). To do both, just combine to get:

<A HREF="http://www.slcc.edu/cgi-bin/imagemap/maps/hp_menu.map";>
<IMG SRC="http://www.slcc.edu/maps/hp_menu.gif"; HEIGHT=252
WIDTH=187 ALT="[Menu]" BORDER="0" ALIGN="middle" USEMAP="#hp_menu" ISMAP></A>

again with the map somewhere in the HTML file.

Pros and cons on the two types of mapping:

  Server side maps are more commonly understood, but do not (and can not)
  provide desitination info. Modifying the map can be done by just changing
  the map file.

  Client maps are becoming more commonly understood, and provide desination
  info, but require recoding of the HTML file to modify the map.

  Using both gives as nearly universal support of image maps as you are 
  likely to get, but does mean that changing the map now requires changing 
  both the HTML file and the map file.

You will notice that on our site (http://www.slcc.edu/) that most pages (not
the home page, though) have a menu bar at the bottom. This is done as a 
purely server side map because if I want to modify the menu bar, I don't 
want to have to go in and modify a couple of thousand (yes, we really have
that many page!) HTML files too. As is, I make a change in the image is 
needed, and then change the .map file and every page reflects the change.

Normally, however, I prefer client side maps becuase of the destination
info they provide.

Hope that helps some.

Scott

Scott McGee: Salt Lake Community College Webmaster | When in danger,
___________________________________________________| or in doubt,
Email: address@hidden (Scott McGee)         | run in circles,
Web:   http://www.slcc.edu/infotech/webmaster.html | scream and shout.
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