Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference

Name

ISMAP — NN all IE all HTML all

Synopsis

ISMAP

Optional

The Boolean ISMAP attribute tells the browser that the IMG element is acting as a server-side image map. To turn an image into a server-side image map, wrap the IMG element with an A element whose HREF attribute points to the URL of the CGI program that knows how to interpret the click coordinate information. The browser appends coordinate information about the click to the URL like a GET form method appends form element data to the ACTION attribute URL. In the following example, if a user clicks at the coordinate point 50, 25, the browser sends "http://www.giantco.com/cgi-bin/nav?50,25" to the server. A server CGI program named nav might examine the region in which the coordinate point appears and send the relevant HTML back to the client.

More recent browsers allow client-side image maps (see the USEMAP attribute), which operate more quickly for the user because there is no communication with the server to carry out the examination of the click coordinate point.

Example

<A HREF="http://www.giantco.com/cgi-bin/nav" TARGET="main">
<IMG SRC="navbar.gif" ISMAP HEIGHT=90 WIDTH=120>
</A>

Value

The presence of the attribute turns the feature on.

Default

Off.

Object Model Reference

IE

[window.]document.imageName.isMap

[window.]document.images[i].isMap