mapedit 1.1.2

Credits and license terms

Copyright 1994 by Thomas Boutell. THIS IS NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE. Commercial users must pay for it to continue using it after 30 days. You need not register again when new versions are released. Please remit $25 to:

Thomas Boutell
P.O. Box 20837
Seattle, WA 98102 USA

What's new in version 1.1.2

What's new in version 1.1.1

What's new in version 1.1

CERN support! Version 1.1 has complete support for both CERN and NCSA imagemap formats. Mapedit can now automatically recognize either format during loading, and you can save as either format (note that this allows you to convert from one to the other). You can use resources to set CERN to be the default.

The Imakefile should now be more broadly compatible, particularly with SunOS 4.1.3.

The crash when clicking the left mouse button at inappropriate times has been fixed.

mapedit is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor for imagemap files.

Imagemap files are a feature of both NCSA and CERN httpd servers; they allow you to turn a GIF into a clickable map by designating polygons, circles and rectangles within the GIF and specifying a URL for each to link to.

Unfortunately, creating good image maps by hand is a lot of work, because the points must be located using an editor not explicitly designed for the purpose.

To use mapedit, you will need the following:

• The X Window System (popularly known as "X"), release 5 or better. This is not a Macintosh or Microsoft Windows or MSDOS-based program, and I have no immediate plans to port it to those platforms. (NOTE: if you have a version older than X11R5, it's time your site upgraded. X11R6 is out now, and X11R5 is several years old.)
• An ANSI C compiler. If you do not have an ANSI C compiler, install gcc, which is available for free. You will probably run into this if you have only the stock compiler that comes with SunOS 4.1.3. Get gcc. (Sun's separately-packaged acc will work fine also.)
• The NCSA or CERN World Wide Web server, or another server allowing cgi-bin scripts, and the imagemap program from the NCSA or CERN server distribution. (Why else would you want mapedit?)
• Imake. This should be standard in your X distribution.
• The Athena widgets. These are also a free part of the standard MIT X distribution, but some vendors have, for no apparent reason, removed them. They can be found separately, however. This program would be a great deal less user-friendly without them.

  You can get an attractive 3D look using the alternative "Xaw3d" widgets, which provide a Motif-like appearance. mapedit works fine with or without Xaw3d. To use Xaw3d instead, change "-lXaw" to "-lXaw3d" in the Makefile that is produced after you run xmkmf (see the section on building mapedit). (Of course, you must get and install Xaw3d first!)

How do I get mapedit?

In order to build mapedit, first untar the mapedit.tar file with the following commands:

uncompress mapedit1.1.2.tar.Z
tar -xf mapedit1.1.2.tar

cd to this directory and examine the Imakefile, which you may need to change slightly. Specifically, if your default C compiler (the one that executes when you type "cc") does not accept ANSI standard C, you will need to add a line specifying your ANSI C compiler instead. For instance:

CC=gcc

Now, type "xmkmf". If all goes well, you will now have a Makefile. If this doesn't work, find out how to run Imake on your system from your system's documentation.

Finally, type "make". This will compile and link mapedit.

If you get compilation errors, PLEASE verify that you have the required tools listed above, especially ANSI C and X11R5. If you still have problems, feel free to contact me.

The initial mapedit screen has a File menu at the top left and a palette of toggle buttons on the row beneath it. Initially the palette is disabled, since you have not yet opened an image and a map.

Using the mouse, pull down the File menu and select Open/Create Map.... A dialog box will appear, probably in the upper left corner, depending on your window manager.

In this dialog box you should enter the filename you would like to give to your map, which need not already exist, and the filename of a .gif image the map will be of, which must exist. (mapedit is not a paint program. To create your own GIFs, try David Koblas' xpaint; use archie to locate a copy near you.)

Type in a map filename, such as "test.map", and also enter the location of a GIF image for which you want to create a map. (Give paths in the file system, of course, not URLs!) The characters you type will appear in the field in which you have placed the mouse pointer.

Also set the Style menu to the appropriate style for your server (CERN or NCSA). NOTE: you can change the default by placing the following line in your .Xdefaults file:

Mapedit*cern: True

Press RETURN or click on OK when you have entered the filenames.

If the map file does not already exist, you will be asked if you want to create it. Click on OK to continue. If the map does exist, mapedit will automatically determine the correct server type regardless of the Style menu setting.

mapedit will now load your GIF image into memory. This will take a few moments, depending on the size of the image.

When the image has been loaded, it will appear in the main mapedit window, which should expand or shrink to suit the image. If the image is large, scrollbars for horizontal and vertical movement may appear.

You can navigate the image using the scrollbars. If you are using vanilla Athena widgets, you will recognize them as the same type you see in your xterms. If you are using Xaw3d, they will be considerably more Motif-like.

Click on Poly to begin drawing a polygonal hot spot. Now click the left mouse button at some point on the edge of an area of interest in the image.

Move the mouse pointer to another point on the edge of the area of interest, tracing its outline. Note that a "rubber-band" line follows you from the point of the initial click.

Click again at this second point. Continue clicking points until you have outlined all but the final connection back to the first point. (You do not need to hold down the mouse button.)

(Note that if you don't like the way your polygon is turning out, you can click the right mouse button to cancel it; then start over with the left mouse button.)

To complete the polygon, click the middle mouse button.

Another window will pop up, prompting you for the URL that this polygon should link to. If you don't yet know the URL, type in a name that is meaningful to you so you will be able to recognize it later. Also add any comments you wish in the comments window. Click on OK or press RETURN to continue. (The RETURN key only has this effect in the URL window, since multiple-line comments are allowed in the comments window.)

The polygon will now be traced in solid white, and a final side between the last point and the first point will be automatically added.

Now select Rect from the palette. Click the left mouse button in one corner of a rectangular region of interest in the image. Now move the mouse pointer to the opposite corner, tracing out a rectangle. (You do not need to hold down the mouse button.)

Click the middle mouse button to accept the rectangle, and enter a URL for it as you did for the polygon. (Just as for polygons, the right mouse button can be used to cancel the rectangle while you are tracing it out.)

Now select Circle from the palette. Circles work just like rectangles, except that the left mouse click positions the center of the circle, and you can then move the mouse pointer to any point on the edge of the desired circle and click the middle mouse button to accept it. As before, the right button cancels.

Important note: when hot spots overlap, the oldest gets the click. This is important because this is how the actual NCSA imagemap program will behave when your users click on your map in practice.

NOTE: When you delete a hot spot (object), comments associated with that hot spot are also deleted.

You may also, on the other hand, want to get rid of the default URL completely. Once you have set a default URL, a Delete button will appear in the Edit Default URL window. Click this button to remove the default URL.

Note: The testing tool does not indicate when the default URL would be used. It was felt that not popping up anything indicates clearly that the click is not in any hot spot, and displaying the default URL might be misleading.

If a problem is encountered while writing this file (if you entered a bad path when you first created the map, for instance), use the Save As file menu option to enter a new name for the map file.