I’m working on a project that uses a lot of image maps. Within the image maps are a number of areas with links to bookmarks on the same page, a link that’s really alt text triggered by a hover, and then a series of boxes that link to topic popups. Fun stuff!
I really want to single-source this image map because it’s being reused in three different topics. So – to do this I build a snippet that contains the image and the bookmarks…and begin to build the image map…
Except that it doesn’t work.
The image map option is greyed out. It’s because a snippet doesn’t contain the <head> tags where the coordinates lay to create an image map.
Ok, I can figure this out…I’ll put the image in a snippet, insert the snippet in to the topics and build the image map from there. Yeah….no.
Again, it doesn’t work.
But I really really want to single-source this because each image map is complicated – and each new version of the original image forces me to re-do the image map. Not just once….but three times for each time there’s a change to the image.
After a call to tech support (Thank You, Ryan!) – it was confirmed: I couldn’t do what I needed to do. I couldn’t single-source an image map. “There is…another.”
Another option, that is.
And while it may not be pretty – it really works. It’s called Ctrl C….Ctrl V.
Here’s what I did:
I inserted the image in to the first topic (Topic 1) where it was needed. I built the image map with all necessary objects. Ctrl-S here!
Then I opened the next topic where the image and image map needed to be (Topic 2) in text editor (not xml editor).
I returned to Topic 1, again in text editor, and selected and copied the entire map code <map> immediately below the </head> tag and above the <body> tag. An example of the image map code and its location in the topic code is shown here:
So, copy that code from Topic 1 and paste it in to Topic 2 in the exact same location.
Then, you need to copy and paste the image code as well. See an example of the image code here:
Again, copy that code (I include the <p> tag too) from Topic 1 to Topic 2 and you’re done using an image map in two locations while only actually building it once.
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