Question

style an area in an image mapping

Asked by: FouadDaniels

Hi Experts,
Is it possible to somehow show the area's in an image map?
In other words is it possible to style area's in an image map so that a background color or a dot or an image whithin that area is visible?
 

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Asked On
2004-07-07 at 04:06:52ID21050325
Tags

image

,

map

,

area

,

style

Topic

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
10

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Answers

 

by: CrYpTiC_MauleRPosted on 2004-07-07 at 04:23:59ID: 11490231

Why not just make the image like that? Or are you referring to when you mouseover the are it chnages to a certain color, or dot appears etc?

 

by: Havin_itPosted on 2004-07-07 at 04:30:23ID: 11490294

The areas themselves cannot have CSS styles applied (I believe).  If they are all rectangular areas, you could substitute them for transparent DIVs with onClick events - amounts to about the same amount of code.  If you put a background on them, though, you will not see the image behind.  Have you considered just altering the image to define the areas visually?

Or you could use a script to cycle focus through the different areas, so they display a marquee around them in quick succession - though I imagine this would tax the user's processor and make clicking operations unpredictable.

There are a number of ways to cut this cake, the bottom line is what is the purpose of this image and map, and what do you want it to look like?  How much should the area indicators disrupt the original image?  Remember image-map areas with a link can have ALT text and the cursor will change to a finger when you roll over them - do you need more than that?

 

by: FouadDanielsPosted on 2004-07-07 at 04:38:10ID: 11490372

What i need is a map of a country, with on it spots with an onclick and an alt text. I cannot put it in the image iteself because the whole system where the spot shows up and other properties will be inserted in a content management system and have to be easilly editable. Also in the end there will be about 500 of these spots, so i need a clean way to program this else i'll have performance troubles.

 

by: Havin_itPosted on 2004-07-07 at 06:01:07ID: 11491140

Let's see if i follow this... the spots are the areas, and these are generated by the CMS, and you want each spot to be visible?

Does the CMS interface simply involve inputting the code for the areas, or is it more complex than that?

Whatever function is being used to generate the areas, I imagine it could be changed to generate clickable DIVs instead.

<area shape='rect' coords='20,20,10,10' href='foo.htm' alt='Go to Foo'>

to

<div style="position:relative; top:20;left:20;height:10;width:10;background-image:'dot.gif';background-repeat:no-repeat;"
onClick="location.href='foo.htm';"></div>

or something like that.  The main image will need to be inside a container like a DIV so the other DIVs can be positioned relative to it.  The DIV's whole rectanglular area will be covered by the link, but you could use a circular image with transparency around it.  Oh hang on - if you want a circular area for each link, there is a fairly economical way:

<script>
function getMap(theLink,theAlt)
   {
   document.getElementById('dotmap').areas[0].href = theLink;
   document.getElementById('dotmap').areas[0].alt = theAlt;
   }
</script>

<map name="dotmap">
<area shape="circle" coords="5,5,5">  <!-- matches circle in dot.gif -->
</map>

<div style="position:relative; top:20;left:20;height:10;width:10;">
<img src="dot.gif" height="10" width="10" border="0" usemap="#dotmap" onMouseOver="getMap('foo.htm','Go to Foo');">
</div>

The map is re-used for every dot, and the DIV just needs to be generated with the top and left coords and the appropriate arguments for the getMap() function.  This in effect changes every single dot, but that shouldn't matter as you can only mouseover one at a time.

Is this kind of rewrite viable?

 

by: homewabbitPosted on 2004-10-25 at 02:14:52ID: 12398433

There is a program called 'handy image map' (free, google) you can draw the on the regions and then use the image map code created in your page .  Then use a graphics program and cut out the clickable regions.  You can then edit the cut out images to be displayed on mouseover.

HW/*

 

by: FouadDanielsPosted on 2004-12-20 at 00:57:31ID: 12864957

Thanks for your help, and sorry for the late reply.

 

by: Havin_itPosted on 2004-12-20 at 02:13:19ID: 12865300

That's okay - did we help? How did you solve it in the end?

 

by: Havin_itPosted on 2004-12-20 at 03:45:44ID: 12865700

You know, I only just got around to testing the code above. It works! Apart from one correction: the 'dot' divs should be position:absolute. Put them inside the back-image's DIV tag and they'll still be relative to that DIV. Also, just to optimise the code a bit more, I did this:

<script>
var states = new Array('WA','OR','ID');
var urls = new Array('wa.htm','or.htm','id.htm');
var alts = new Array('Washington','Oregon','Idaho');
var tops = new Array('60','100','110');
var lefts = new Array('70','70','110');
</script>

... as above, then do the div like this ...

<div style="position:relative;top:0px;left:10px;height:414px;width:550px;background-image:url(us-map.gif);" id="main">

<script type="text/javascript">
for(i=0;i<urls.length;i++)
document.write('\
<div id="'+states[i]+'" style="position:absolute;top:'+tops[i]+'px;left:'+lefts[i]+'px;height:10px;width:10px;">\
<img src="spot.gif" height="10" width="10" border="0" usemap="#dotmap" onMouseOver="getMap(\''+urls[i]+'\',\''+alts[i]+'\');">\
</div>');
</script>

</div>

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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