creating an image map

[PotsNPans]

Under what circumstances would you want to create an image map on your website? And is it easier to do so in CSS or HTML?

[jdandrus]

Use an image map to send different parts of an image to different locations (url's or anchors on a page). I've used this technique to use an actual map to send people to different regions' directory pages, or on an image to send people to different pages based on the part of the image they clicked (for example, on a chiropractor's site, clicking on different body parts might send you to a page that lists ailments typical to the legs, arms, back, etc. Or clicking on a signpost pointing in several directions might send you to different "activity" pages from a summer camp's home page).

I haven't done these in a while, but I remember using specialized image editing software to create the images and then it's done in html to send to different anchors or href's. I don't know how css would fit in (hope someone else might answer that part!)