image map

image map A graphic which is found on a WEB PAGE and which contains HYPERLINKS to other Web pages. For example, a company which is based in the United Sates might keep a separate WEB PAGE for its branches in each of the states. A good way of accessing these pages would be through an image map in a graphic showing a map of the United States, where hyperlinks are embedded in each state. Clicking on each state would result in the page for that state being loaded into a BROWSER for viewing. In the early days of the Web, producing image maps was a complicated and tedious process. However, there are now many tools which can provide a high degree of automation and, increasingly, HTML EDITORS and WYSIWYG EDITORS are providing this facility. There are two types of image map: CLIENT SIDE IMAGE MAPS and SERVER SIDE IMAGE MAPS. The latter is the oldest type of image map. When a user clicks on this type of map the browser sends the information to the server which then decides on the Web page to send back. The former is a more up-to-date technique, where all the processing of the clicking of the image map is carried out by the client computer on which the browser is being used.