Welcome to Mapper, a tool claiming to be the easiest way to create imagemaps for the World Wide Web! To make it to be what it says, I need some help though. If you find any bugs, if you have any suggestions or if there are any questions, please mail me about it! Comments are always appreciated! Mapper isn't free. If you find this program useful, you should pay the few dollars it costs to encourage a poor shareware author :-)
what is an imagemap?
An imagemap is another name for a webmap or a 'clickable image' which is used on the WWW. The image has different hotspots, different links depending on where you click on it. A map can be written in three formats (see inside the program for details), and Mapper can generate all of them. You don't have to find out the coordinated manually, Mapper is just as simple as the rest of your Mac. Click and drag, type the URL and.. voìla!
why mapper?
There are other tools like this, why should you use Mapper? Well, Mapper can read and write in all three formats, even files created by other programs. It has built-in support of JPEG, GIF, PICT, BMP and even ART-compressed graphics, there is a freehand polygon tool, there is JavaScript comments support, there is three different ways to show objects and finally, Mapper is updated and supported!
requirements
Mapper needs a Mac with at least a 68020-processor (it's accelerated for PowerPC too), MacOS 7.0 or higher, and at least 4 Mb of RAM (more for really big graphics).
what's news since the betas?
• Mapper can now save Client-Side imagemaps directly into the HTML-file
• Built-in support of JPEG, PICT, GIF, BMP and ART-compressed files
• JavaScript comments support added
• Objects coded to be placed outside the graphic area are no longer used
• Now save rectangles in CERN-maps correctly
• "HTML Source" window added, showing an example on how to write the HTML-code
• "Save To Clipboard" added
• Better menu handling
• New tool for Freehand polygons (earlier available by option-clicking the polygon tool)
• Graphics bigger than the screen now fits on screen
• "Map info" was renamed to "Map Settings" to avoid confusion
• "Map Settings" is automatically choosed when creating new maps
• Fixed minor problems with popup-menus and the menubar
• Fixed problems with system errors when opening a graphic
• Removed the "Undo" command, hope to add it later though
• Preview added in the "Open Graphic" dialog
• Preference dialog re-organized (since QT-settings were no longer needed)
• A new gray layout of the dialogs was added
• Gave the application (and preference) icons a MacOS 8-touch
• The final version was written and compiled with SuperCard 3.0.1, while earlier version used SuperCard 2.0 (both from Allegiant Inc.)
Mapper 1.0 is fully compatible with imagemaps saved by earlier versions of the program. I'm really sorry for the delay of the final release.
known bugs and upcoming features
• Mapper can have problems reading JavaScript-comments in Client-Side imagemaps, not created by Mapper itself.
• Mapper can not undo operations, but I'm looking on some ways to implement this feature.
• A list-window is suggested, and it will arrive sometime.
• Mapper doesn't support 'points', available in the NCSA-maps. Points are converted to circles with a radius of 2.
• Mapper uses ovals instead of circles in the NCSA format, but you won't see any differences.
contact the author and download new versions
The easiest way to find new releases of Mapper is to visit Nisseb softwares homepage. Don't look at Info-Mac or in similar archives. Even if the people behind these services do the best they can, new versions aren't available there for the first 1 or 2 weeks. A good tip is to subscribe to Nisseb's (free) mailinglist, and you'll be notified whenever something happens. Visit the webpage to subscribe. (Swedish users, är du uppkopplad på IDG\Online finns alltid de senaste versionerna i programbanken. Mer information om nordens största BBS hittar du på http://www.idg.se/online/)
Mapper is copyright Carl Bäckström and Nisseb software, all rights reserved. Portions is copyright Allegiant Technologies Inc. Mapper is created using SuperCard® 3.0. See the About-box or Help-window for details. I give no warranty for the program, but I'll try to fix any problems you may find. Mapper is $5 shareware, or a part of the Nisseb software $10 sharewarepack, including other useful and awarded programs. Mapper may freely be uploaded to any BBS or archive (please do!), as well as added onto CD:s or similars.
If you like this program - please tell our friends!
Thanks to Fred Weinhaus and Jacob Ehnmark for suggestions, to all those people who supports the shareware idea, to all my friends and to all I've forgotten...
