Hello,
I’m a greener than green Newb with 1 goal – I would like to position a slideshow in just the right place on top of a 942x805 pix wide image map that I’m using as a backdrop (the nav bar portion of this image is linked).

What I have done so far can be seen here: http://home.comcast.net/~olysis/Website/sample2.html

Problem is, I don’t want the slideshow positioned down past the backdrop, where it is now, I want it centered & in just the right spot on top of it. Is my goal possible?

I’ve spent many nights & countless hours going thru 4 thick HTML& CSS library books & have Googled my fingers off to no avail. At this point, I’m nearly ready to chuck the whole thing & call it a day. Perhaps the answer is simple and I’m just too thick to recognize it? I’m hoping some kind soul may be able to help, Thank You.

P.S.: I’ve read enough to assume that my approach may be frowned upon by professionals. Here is why I’ve set things up as I have: I intend for this to be a small site w/ images of my photos & art, to be viewed by family & friends only (I don’t want it to be found in search engines). I want the pages to appear as I designed them, with my chosen fonts & no unpredictable stretching, which is why I used an image map to provide both links and backdrop, with the goal of positioning the slideshow on top. I know that my viewers will have images enabled & will not be looking at the site on a small device.

What you want is totally do-able, and really not all that complicated. It can even be done without the image map that you've got in there now and still retain the look that you have.

Are you doing this in .net? If not, why is the whole thing inside a <form>?

Id suggest using <div>'s to place the slideshow inside and then place the <div> whereever you want.

Originally Posted by LadynRed

What you want is totally do-able, and really not all that complicated. It can even be done without the image map that you've got in there now and still retain the look that you have.

Are you doing this in .net? If not, why is the whole thing inside a <form>?

Thank you for replying. I’m very glad to know that what I want to do is, in fact, is do-able! As mentioned, I’m as green as it gets and I’m unfamiliar with “.net”. I found the code for the slideshow online here:
( http://www.ricocheting.com/code/java...e-slideshow-v2 )
The slideshow html was automatically placed between <form> & </form>. I simply copied & pasted all the generated code into Notepad. I really like the look of that slideshow and hope I can keep it as is and still achieve my goals.

Any further info regarding the steps I must take in order to get the slideshow positioned properly would be much appreciated. Also, I’d be very interested to learn how I can link to my other pages without using an image map, while still maintaining my desired look & fonts, (and if, realistically, such a feat can be achieved by a rank amateur).

FYI: One image map alternative I have tried (that didn’t work for me) was making jpegs of each word on the nav bar, positioning them as desired in Kompozer, and making them image links. The links worked and everything looked fine in Kompozer & Firefox, but the positioning looked unacceptably off in IE. The reason I used Kompozer is because I don’t know how to position elements that precisely on my own).

Originally Posted by lynxus

Id suggest using <div>'s to place the slideshow inside and then place the <div> whereever you want.

Thanks for replying. I don’t know about <div>’s yet (I just checked out another html library book today & it seems “dummy friendly” so hopefully I can learn).

I’m not knowledgeable about how the slideshow is actually coded (I generated the code online, here: ( http://www.ricocheting.com/code/java...e-slideshow-v2 ). It seems like it is comprised of 2 parts –one that lies between the tags: <script type="text/javascript"> </script> and another part that lies between the tags: <form name="slideshow"></form>. Do you know which part (or both) should be housed within div tags? I’d be grateful for any further assistance you may be able to offer.

I will try to get something framed out for you. As for the slideshow, there are TONS of alternatives that work just as well, if not better, using jQuery, which is much more unobtrusive than the javascript solution you are currently using.

Your entire page can be laid out using divs

Originally Posted by LadynRed

I will try to get something framed out for you. As for the slideshow, there are TONS of alternatives that work just as well, if not better, using jQuery, which is much more unobtrusive than the javascript solution you are currently using.

Your entire page can be laid out using divs

I finally found some DIV info that seems to work for me! I found it here:
http://www.web-source.net/web_develo...t_graphics.htm

Here is my revamped page:
http://home.comcast.net/~olysis/Webs...tingThere.html

I'm hoping I got it right, and everything looks all nice & centered in my browser, but I'm afraid it's all too good to be true! Do you think the markup I've cobbled together might result in my image map backdrop and/or the slideshow that sits on top looking off center or strange on variously sized monitors? If so, Is there a way to position my slideshow so that it is still 161 down from the top but centered automatically (rather than assigning a numerical value for the left)?

I'm also wondering what sort of doctype my concoction requires.

Lastly, I gotta know - just how laughably bad / atrocious / bloated / deprecated is my goulash of markup? It's OK to be brutal - I can take it!