Using Imagemaps on Your Web Site

Server based imagemaps are fully supported and should be fairly easy for you to get running yourself. We provide both server based and CGI based imagemap support. Server based imagemap support is preferred but CGI based support is provided for compatibility with older HTML pages.

Image Map Programs PC:        iMapR v1.2        winsim10d.exe Mac:        map2HTML        WebMap101

Server Based Imagemap Support

Our servers include built-in support for using imagemaps. Using server based imagemap support allows very fast imagemap resolution. Since the server doesn't have to load an external program to resolve the map file execution and map resolution can occur very quickly.

To use server based imagemap support first create your map file using any standard map file creation tool. Upload the map file to your site using any standard ftp program placing the map file somewhere under your "www" directory (the location isn't critical). The map file must have the file extension of ".map" (i.e. mymap.map). Modify your HTML file to call the map file and you're ready to test it. Here's an example that would work just fine for your site (you could use relative paths if you prefer).

Virtual Site
<A HREF="http:/maps/NavBar_25x495.map" >
<IMG ALT="NavBar" SRC="/images/NavBar_25x495.gif" ISMAP></A>

Non Virtual Site
 <A HREF= "http:/~your_login_name/maps/ NavBar_25x495.map">
 <IMG ALT="NavBar" SRC="/~your_login_name/images/ NavBar_25x495.gif" ISMAP></A>

The first line just tells the server where to find your map file, in this case the map file is located in the "maps" directory located under your "www" directory and named "NavBar_25x495.map".

The second line tells the server where to load the image (GIF) from and tells it that it is an image map (ISMAP).

CGI Based Imagemap Support

We've installed the latest version of imagemap. This version allows you (as a user) to easily create and use image maps without having to have special configuration files setup by us.

We have included a sample imagemap in the example.html file located in your www directory as well as a sample map file in your www/maps directory. I hope the example is worth 100 lines of text.

To use an image map file insert the following 2 lines in your html file:

Virtual Site
<A HREF="http:/cgi-bin/imagemap/maps/NavBar_25x495.map">
<IMG ALT="NavBar" SRC="http:/images/NavBar_25x495.gif" ISMAP><A>

Non Virtual Site
<A HREF="http:/cgi-bin/imagemap/~your_login_name/NavBar_25x495.map">
<IMG ALT="NavBar" SRC="http:/~your_login_name/images/NavBar_25x495.gif" ISMAP><A>

The first line tells the server where to find the map file for your image. The first part of the URL will always be constant.

        <A HREF="http:/cgi-bin/imagemap/

The last part of the URL

Virtual Site
maps/NavBar_25x495.map">

Non Virtual Site
~netgate/maps/NavBar_25x495.map">

changes depending on where you put your image map files. The "maps" directory is the directory we've selected for the example, you can choose to organize your directory structure as you see fit. The default directory "~yourloginname/www" is the default directory where you need to store all your html files. As the default you don't have to specify the "www" portion of the path, the server knows to look there for your html files.
The second line tells the server where to load the image (GIF) from and tells it that it is an image map (ISMAP).

There are numerous utilities to help you create the map files. For the example I used WebMap running on a Macintosh. You can use whatever tool works best for you.