1) a click:
URL?x-coord,y-coord
where URL might be http://somehost/cgi-bin/maphandler.
What about more actions? The objective is to minimize the unnecessary
client-server communication. Here is what I speculated:
2) select a region:
URL?"shape definition as in html 3.0 dtd"
where the html 3.0 dtd is dated 9 Jan'95 by Dave <[email protected]>
(http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/html3-dtd.txt)
note: browser writer can use whatever method to select the region
and send the message. Example: a single button mouse can use: MB-down and
drag to form a region (depending on what kind of selection mode you are in,
a decent paint/drawing program has at least 3 selection mode: rectangle,
circle, free-form (basically polygon)), MB-release, click inside the region
to send the message; click outside the map to cancel the selection.
3) select a region and drag the region to a new position:
URL?"shape definition as in html 3.0 dtd"+x1,y1+x2,y2
where x1,y1 is a point inside the original region; x2,y2 is the new
position of x1,y1.
note: browser writer can use whatever method to select the region
and send the message. Example: a single button mouse can use: MB-down and
drag to form a region, MB-release, move to a point (x1,y1) inside the
region, MB-down and drag the region to a new postion (x2,y2), MB-release to
send the message.
Sounds quite clear/logical/easy?
Any comments/pointers/suggestions appreciated. TIA.
__Luke
P.S: Oh, an Easter egg in Netscape for you patient reader. Select
About Netscape, the "Netscape communication corporation" logo is actually
an image map. Click on it randomly, there is 94.3% chance that you will get
"The Netscape Team 1994" -- list of netscape's authors, the remaining 5.7%
chance will bring you to "The Mozilla Team 1994" which is a pretty cool
jpeg of the Mozilla team, which is also an map. Click on the people on
photo will bring you to their home pages. How to increase the 5.7% to 100%
is left as an excersize :). A question though, where is marca?
--
Luke Y. Lu
mailto://[email protected]
http://www.utexas.edu/~lyl/