Image maps, here is a topic worth looking over (why else would we have this little tutorial about them). They allow a web page creator to take one image and have various hot spots that can link to anything. This gives the ability to reduce clutter and allows for a nice overall look to a web page.

The way that image maps used to be done was either by way of CGI script (Common Gateway Interface) with server-side image maps or a Java applet that would do the same thing. These things were not and still are not always available to the average web designer so image maps were then only for the privileged few.

Even if you were fortunate enough to have access to image maps in those old days, they took too much time. In the case of a CGI script, after you clicked on the image you would have to wait for the server that ran the script to process the mapping request and then to send back its reply. In the case of the Java applet, however, you would have to wait for the applet to load in. The only other option that was left (if you wanted the image mapping effect) was to break the image up into many different parts. To have to break up an image can become tedious work. Plus, you would then be restricted to using only rectangular links, what if you wanted to use circular portion that you wanted to be the only active portion. Hmmm, all this would be enough to keep a person out of the image mapping business all together.

That was then. But now, there are client-side image maps to free you from all this undue stress. These are placed within the HTML code of the document and loaded with the page. If you are interested in learning how to make client-side image maps, let's move on to the next section.

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