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Maps and rollovers
Hi folks,
Any suggestion for a (reasonably) quickie solution here. I want rollovers on the countries but the overlap is causing a problem. In this capture, the cursor is over Germany only, but Luxembourg and Austria are also highlighted.
I could just link the country labels but I'd prefer more than that.
If this isn't doable in Xara then I'd appreciate alternatives suggestions.
Cheers
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Re: Maps and rollovers
Hi Sadler,
My guess (and it is only a guess) is that your maps are overlapping slightly, which is causing the multiple countries to get highlighted when you mouse over them. What I would suggest is that you place the mouse over images on individual layers and use the mouse over tab to make them function like you want. I have done one of them for you as an example. Check out Germany.
Hope that helps,
Eric
OK. I've had another think about this and realized what part of the problem is. When doing mouse over effects, Xara uses a bounding box (rectangle) around the object that has the effect. This means that the area around Germany (that fits in a box drawn around the country) will also cause the mouse over effect when you mouse over it. You can set the mouse over effect for just the area of the object (group in this case) but it only works in image maps and in flash exports. I don't know much about image maps but this is what the Xara help files say.
"Image Map
An image map lets you have "clickable" areas on the graphic when displayed in a browser. Clicking one of these areas jumps to a new web page. If you want to create an image map, use "Utilities -> Web Address" to add web addresses (URLs) to the different parts of your drawing.
Export Image Map to Clipboard: This copies the image map HTML to the clipboard so you can paste it into your text or web page editor. There is an option on the Bitmap Size tab to save the HTML IMG tab to the clipboard. Selecting either of these clipboard options automatically deselects the other option.
Export Image Map to File: This copies the image map text to a file. You can either:
Insert Image Map into Existing File: This inserts the image map into the specified file. If the file already contains an image map with the same name, the existing image map is replaced. If this is a new image map, it is inserted at the end of the file.
Replace Existing File: This overwrites any existing contents of the file. This option is useful if you want to save the image map text for use later.
Note that opening this file in a browser displays a blank window, i.e. you don't see the graphic. The reason is that the file does not include the IMG tag needed to display the graphic. The IMG tag might look like this: <img src="file name.gif" usemap="#example" />."
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Re: Maps and rollovers
The problem appears to be how the countries are grouped, ungroup the whole map and regroup it as you want it too appear on mouse over, and that will solve it.
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Re: Maps and rollovers
Cool - thanks Eric - that's a sound solution for me.
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Re: Maps and rollovers
But ..... if you put your mouse over the west of Czeckoslovakia (which doesn't exist anymore) then Germany is highlighted. This phenomenon has been discussed before, in that the mouseover area is square. I seem to remember that V5 changed something in that, but am unclear on how this is workable.
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Re: Maps and rollovers
Well spotted.
There's a bit in the help that says if 50% of the mouseover graphic is in the mouseover area then it will be displayed. I'm not sure if this is relevant here though.
BTW, this is a map from 1947 when Czechoslovakia still existed (I believe).
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Re: Maps and rollovers
The cloud/transparency effect on top of the countries is overlapping adjoining areas, you need to crop those back to within the countries borders.
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Re: Maps and rollovers
Start with something very simple, to see how it behaves. As far as I can see, the mouseover ALWAYS responds the the bounding box/rectangle of the trigger shape. Check out the attached .web file.
I recall that sometime ago, this was discussed in the Web Designer forum. Doing a search for "image maps", I came up with Creating Image Hot Spots with XWD.
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Re: Maps and rollovers
An alternative would be to create a swf file in XX. This does allow you to use the shape of the objects.
Here's a xar file that has UK, France and Belgium as clickable shapes. Click on the country map to return to the Europe map.
Very rough and ready but it should give you the thinking behind it.
Note that the rollover only uses the shape, not a rectangle behind the shape.
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Re: Maps and rollovers
Try this option with Egg's suggestion