Should I be using <a> or <maps>?

[Guest LP123]

While helping to clean up (ha... well I'm super new to web design so I use that term quite loosely) my father's website created on Dreamweaver, I noticed that all this nav buttons were formatted with the element, rather than linking through the image with the element. I understand that links the image to the file, while the links a certain coordinate space to the file. My question is, is it better to use one or the other, as a general rule? I figure that the would be really helpful for working with images that might overlap or something, but is it better to use

-LP

[quyen]

Hi,

 

Well, i think it depends on what is your purpose? what do you want it to do? and tags are both very helpful.

 

programmers use tag :

1. To create a link to another document, by using the href attribute

2. To create a bookmark inside a document, by using the name attribute

example: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_link_test

 

The tag is used to define a client-side image-map. An image-map is an image with clickable areas.

The name attribute is required in the map element. This attribute is associated with the 's usemap attribute and creates a relationship between the image and the map.

The map element contains a number of area elements, that defines the clickable areas in the image map. This example will help you to choose the best options : http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_areamap

 

Quyen,

[lm]

My question is, is it better to use one or the other, as a general rule?

 

If you have few links - in your case it is a menu bar, the correct way is to code it using unordered list tag - ul.

Styling lists with CSS instead of using image maps will help SEO and accessibility of the website in general.

More reading: CSS Play and Listamatic