Well, I've been getting some mail from people who got stuck, so I've added this section of the most common questions I seem to get:


I'm not using Photoshop or I can't figure out how to determine the coordinates.

NEW! This hot tip comes from Jeff:

An easy way to find coordinates is to create a web page with this code:

<A HREF=""><IMG SRC="myimage.gif" ISMAP></A>where myimage is the name of YOUR image. Then open the page in Netscape or Explorer. When you move the mouse over the image you will see the coordinates at the bottom of the screen. It's MAGIC!!! :) (Note: some versions do not support this)

More about coordinates:

Coordinates refer to a specific pixel in your picture. X is the number of pixels across, from the left edge of the picture, Y is the number of pixels down, from  the top edge of the image. For example, 35,78 means 35 pixels across and 78 pixels down.

If your program doesn't have a coordinates feature, estimate using this guideline: The upper left corner coordinate is always 0,0 The lower right corner coordinate always equals the size of your image in pixels. (if your picture is 320 pixels by 240 pixels, the lower right corner is 320, 240) Using these two values you should be able to do a decent job of estimating the coordinates you are looking for.

One note: If you change the size of your image you should recheck the coordinates, since they usually also change.


I want to see text when I move the mouse over the image map (using the ALT tag/ALT doesn't work properly).

You need to use the ALT tag like this:

<AREA SHAPE="rect" ALT="Your Message Here" HREF="tutwhat.htm" COORDS="26,185 75,200">

There is a problem with the ALT tag in some versions of Internet Explorer. You might want to add the TITLE tag inside the AREA tag as well, like this:

<AREA SHAPE="rect" ALT="mytext" TITLE="mytext" HREF="tutwhat.htm" COORDS="26,185 75,200"> This is a HTML 4 spec, apparently not compatible with Communicator. Gotta love the browser wars! Thanks Tom, for this insight.


Shapes

The polygon can have more than 4 points. I don't know if there's an upper limit, but more than 10 is probably overkill ?

The point is pretty point-less :-)


General

Yes, I know there are programs that can do this. But since they kinda defeat the purpose of my page I'm not listing them. Besides they cost money for the most part, my site is absolutely free. Why pay when it's so easy, and so much fun to make your own?


Return to the Tutorial main page. Still stuck? Send email to page designer Kaspar Stromme