Is there a way to link an entire table and all its contents to a web page? The source code as it stands at present is as follows :

<table width="197" border="0" height="33" background="bg_button.gif">
<tr>
<td width="41">
<div align="right"><img src="shopping_but.gif" width="22" height="14"></div>
</td>
<td width="146">
<div align="left">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<b>Shopping</b></div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

i want to link this entire table and the text and the image to the same webpage so that the whole thing appears as if it were one button image (but is in fact a whole lot smaller )

ideas / advice / SOLUTIONS!! are very much appreciated

I don't think there is any easy way to do this. I haven't tried it but I assume putting links tags around the table only links the text, so that wouldn't work.

I suppose you could do something with layers where you place a transparent image ovr it, but thats not a brilliant solution.

I was just wondering why you were doing it. Is it to have dynamic buttons. If you have access to PHP and GD you could do this by creating images on the fly like:

<image src="button.php?label=Shopping">

sheesh you're everywhere today!!

we're doing it to cut down on page download times. we can create the button very easily using a table, a very small image, and some text. but we wanted to link the entire thing, just like a button. this is however proving to be a problem.

the whole idea is to create a faster downloading page. we've cut the download time by 12 seconds so far today

we tried the transparent layer idea, but it was time consuming to set up, and looked very messy afterwards.

php, maybe we'll investigate it, but the buttons are very specific in their looks, so OTF generation may not be a viable solution.

thankx once again for your help!

Hi DaveTodd,

Instead of trying for transparency, I would have simply created a solid-color image that matches the background color of the webpage and then set that as the background image. Is that what you have already?

thankx for your help guys. i managed it in the end.

i linked the table to the right page with an onClick gotoURL behavoir. Then, to get the mouse to show the hand instead of an arrow, so that you could tell it was a link, i added in style="cursor:hand" to the behavoir code.

took me a while to get all the code in the right place, but its all done now. the finished product is all the buttons bar the shopping one on www.safariquip.co.uk - take a look and give me some feedback if you have time

thankx for all your help

Thats looking really good (both the site and the buttons). I certainly wouldn't have noticed that they were tables if I didn't know.

I might try this on some of my sites too. I can see now how it must make the page so much smaller. Just that tiny icon image instead of a huge button. Great idea Dave!

To DAveTod: There's a way
just do this:
<table ........... style="cursor:hand" onClick="location='YOURURL'">

Le me know if that's what are you looking for

Sorry ... Didn't see that somebody sugessted thae same thing ...

thankx...but it wasn't all my idea. my boss wanted to cut down the download times of the page, and this was one of the ideas we came up with, so he "ordered" me to impliment it and i panicked...lol

but hey, its done now. i'm replacing all the left nav bar images in the same way as soon as i can, and that should reduce the page size by a further 10k+, equating to hopefully over 3 secs of download time saved. glad my problem could be of help

Originally posted by DaveTodd
i panicked...lol

Don't panick ) We are Here to help

thankx fusion, little late, but it shows commitment to resolving someone problems.

i panicked cause he sat me down, talked it though, then told me he wanted it done by the end of the day...not good

but hey, i was gettin replies within 2 hours, and it was well and truely sorted within 5. not a bad place this forum, lotsa good people around to help you if you ever need them.

thankx for your input guys...incidently, just before i screw everything up that i've been working for. if theres a fireworks dhtml menu, as on the left nav bar on www.safariquip.co.uk - will this still be linked correclty if i put in a similar linked table idea instead of the buttons?