The next commands that we will discuss are the image maps commands. There are many different kinds of image maps. There are CERN and NCSA image maps which are used by most people and there is a new map called a CSIM. If you have surfed the net maybe you know what I am talking about. Have you ever gone to a page and held your cursor over an image map and when you did this, down at the bottom, there was a link and coordinates (22,33). That kind of map is a CERN or NSCA map. The CSIM map is different in that when you hold the cursor over the map there will be no coordinates and you will see directly where the map is linked to, not a link to a .map file. The older maps need a special server that can support image maps where as the newer maps do not need a special server. You may think that this is good but if the person viewing the map is not using a HTML 3.0 compliant browser the map will not work. If possible, I recommend that you use a CERN or NSCA map because a wide variety of people may be using your web page. There is one exception to this rule, other then if your server does not support the CERN or NSCA type, if you put the map inside a frame that only people with a HTML 3.0 browser will see.
In order to put an image map on your page the first thing that you will need is a gif or jpeg. Using this image you will make the map. I will not go into making a map but I will say that it is quite difficult. Most people will use a program that will make it for them, which is what I do. After you have made the map the next route that you will take is dependent on the type of image map that you are going to have on your web page. In order to insert an older image map on your page you must enter the information in a specific way. The first thing that you must do is to make a hyper-link to the map. If your map is name map.map then you would enter the address the same way you would a link to another page. Then you must enter the link for the map, contained inside the A HREF command, in the form of an image. The only modification to this form is that you must enter the words ISMAP as a modifier in the image command. The final source code for a map that is named map.map as is based on gif named map.gif would look like this:
<A HREF=”map.map”><IMG SRC=”map.gif” ISMAP></A>
Keep in mind that the same rules that can be applied to a normal image in this way can apply to the map. But I do not think that you should do any HEIGHT/WIDTH modifiers into the image command because that could mess thing up. Say that you wanted to have no border on the same map the final source code would look like this:
The next route is to use the newer, HTML 3.0, image map on your page. This is done quite differently, first you will need to make the map and save it in the form of a HTML document with your “map creator" then you would need to insert the map on your main web page or have a special web page for maps. Let’s say you want to keep things simple and put the map on your main web page. After to map is done, you would then move on to coding the map into your page. Instead of including a A HREF command in your map all you have to do is enter the image command and add the modifier USEMAP then an equal sign “=” then a number sign “#” followed by the name of the map coded into your page. The final source code for a map named map that uses a gif named map.gif would look like (for an example I used a map that I made for my page with a program called Map This! for windows 95):
<MAP NAME="map">
<!-- #$-:Image Map file created by Map THIS! -->
<!-- #$-:Map THIS! free image map editor by Todd C. Wilson -->
<!-- #$-:Please do not edit lines starting with "#$" -->
Bear in mind that you can still use the same modifiers in a CSIM image that you can use in an older image map. For example if you wanted no border the map would look like this:
If you wanted to make a main page that contains every image map that you use on your page, for the sake of neatness, you could simply copy all the maps into one HTML document, name it something like map.html and tell the browser to look there for the map. This is done by adding the HTML document’s location in front of the #name of map. The final source code for a map that is named map, in a HTML document called map.html, and for a map called map.gif would look like this:
