« Q & A page

« tech pages

Q: How do I create an image map?
by Mike Slocombe

Q: The Web site www.classicscotland.com has a map showing hotels in Scotland, and when you click on the button on the map, the info on the hotel is displayed. How does this work, and could it be adapted to my own site which features photographs of Scotland?
Andy Bennetts

A: That particular map has been authored in Macromedia's Flash, so you'd need access to the original .fla files to adapt it. Although it's quite easy to create these kind of effects in Flash, it's not the cheapest or most accessible solution.

There are beginners' Flash tutorials at Flash Kit and About.com/.

An alternative would be to create an 'image map' which will give you a similar effect, with different areas of a graphic linking to different HTML pages. There are excellent image map tutorials at www.htmlgoodies.com and www.webdevelopersjournal.com/, while there's an advanced example at www.hbgraphics.com.

Many programs such as HomeSite, Dreamweaver, Adobe Image Ready and Corel Xara include tools to create image maps, or you can download free/shareware specialised tools such as MapEdit and Handy ImageMapper.

June 2002