Art.Net: Help Pages: Using Image Maps

Since we have upgraded Art.Net to use the new Apache 2.2 webserver, image maps are now handled in a new way. Before they were performed by a cgi-bin program. Now the server has a built in module which enables image maps to work without the use of a cgi-bin program.

An image map is an image that has parts of the image mapped to link to other webpages when clicked on,

To use image maps, you need to setup a configuration file that specifies URLs that are returned when certain regions of the image are clicked on. You must place the configuration file in your account on Art.Net, and then reference it when displaying your image.

This is done as follows, where dir is your account name and filename is the name of the configuration file, and image.gif is the name of the clickable image:

<A HREF="http://www.art.net/dir/filename">
<IMG ismap="ismap" SRC="image.gif" ></a>


Currently the Art.Net site buttons are really an image map.

The image is called with the following code:

<A HREF="http://www.art.net/images/buttons.map">
<IMG ismap="ismap" border=0 SRC="http://www.art.net/images/buttons.gif" height="26" width="448" ></a>


The old way that this image map was called was:

<a HREF="http://www.art.net/cgi-bin/htimage/images/buttons.map">
<IMG border=0 SRC="/images/buttons.gif" ISMAP></a>


Image Configuration File

The image configuration file specifies what areas of an image are mapped to other webpages. This file should have a .map extention at the end. A good way to name files is to use the same image name for both files and just change the .extension name (ie: buttons.gif & buttons.map)

The format of an image file has changed. The first format listed below is what works with the new built in module for image maps. This file consists of separate lines of one of four keywords (base, default, poly, circle, rect, and point).

For example, the current buttons.map file for the site image buttons:

has the following format:

default http://www.art.net/Welcome.html
rect http://www.art.net/Welcome.html 0,0 112,25
rect http://www.art.net/the_gallery.html 112,25 224,0
rect http://www.art.net/studios.html 224,0 335,25
rect http://www.art.net/whats_new.html 335,25 447,0

The old format that used the cgi-bin program was:

default http://www.art.net/Welcome.html
rectangle (0,0) (112,25) http://www.art.net/Welcome.html
rectangle (112,25) (224,0) http://www.art.net/the_gallery.html
rectangle (224,0) (335,25) http://www.art.net/studios.html
rectangle (335,25) (447,0) http://www.art.net/whats_new.html

Notice how the URL is listed in front of the the coordinates and that the ( )'s around the coordinates are no longer used in the new format.

Also, it is usually best to make the listed URLs be fully specified, such as http://www.art.net/~account/file.html.

To learn more about how to use the new image maps, please see the Apache 2.2 documentation for "imagemaps".

The really nice thing about using a server module over a cgi-bin program is that the builtin module works faster.

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