GD library & embedding links in strings

Stinger51

I am trying to draw a series of rectangles, with each rectangle containing a link. Drawing the rectangles using a for loop is trivial. But while you can insert text into the rectangles using the function ImageString, no such function exists for inserting a link. And any such link inserted in the string won't work either as it is interpreted as literal text.

You can turn the entire image into a link by using :

ImagePNG($image, 'MyImage.png');

. . . href="http://www.your_website.com"><img src="MyImage.png" . . .

But that's not what I want, as described above. Each rectangle needs to contain its own link.

bretticus

Sorry, you cannot take html code, convert it to an image and expect any web browser to read the contents and parse that layout as a legitimate link.

I do not understand why you cannot envelope the image inside of an anchor tag. Maybe you can be more specific.

The way I see it, you could do something like this.

<a href="home.html"><img src="image.php?label=home"></a>

However, instead of dynamically building button images on-the-fly, it's often much easier to use real links with css and backgrounds (and better for search engine rankings to boot.) Here's one example.

NogDog

Sounds like maybe you want to use a HTML image map.

Stinger51

I enjoyed the info on those rounded CSS buttons, and plan on incorporating those in the near future. Right now, all my buttons are square.

What I'm actually trying to do is design a floor plan for a large indoor market. Each vendor's booth will be a link to a page that will feature their advertising. But I think using an image map, as the other person here suggested, may be what I'm looking for. I tried doing this project using Front Page (which makes it very easy to draw various shapes that contain a link) but F.P. just couldn't keep things lined up after the floor plan got so big.

Stinger51

Yes, that is probably what I'm looking for. Thanks for the info on this. I see I've got some studying to do.

If all goes according to plan, it looks like I can create the initial image (for the map) using GD, and then finish the process using the appropriate HTML.