Rage MapDesign: Full Review and Giveaway
Image maps. We have all seen them dotted around the net. If you are a Facebook user you will be more than familiar with “tagging people in photos. That is a particularly clever form of image mapping.
Essentially image mapping is adding different links to different parts of an image that you select, which link to something relevant. For example, if there is a particular building in an image you could make it so when someone clicks it, it takes the user to the building's website.
However, to accomplish the effect, you need to be a bit of a wizard with HTML/Javascript. This is the problem: it is essentially a very visual task so it’s much harder to accomplish through code than say a graphical editor. RAGE MapDesign is such an editor, and it does the job beautifully. Its best feature is its simplicity; here is the main interface window and its hovering inspector:
As you can see it’s a simple toolbar based design and I can find no fault with its interface. The inspector is a great way to add links to your shapes as well as effects, although the effect choices are limited to highlight and raising a picture. There is a nice preview button that, when pressed, shows a dynamic preview of what your image map would look like in a browser, which gives you some reassurance that the end product is what you are expecting.
I have a couple of gripes with the shape editor, like how just clicking somewhere with one of the tools selected adds a tiny polygon as opposed to ignoring it until it is dragged, but this is minor. Any complaints are more than made up for by the outstanding export feature which allows you to export the map with a variety of image types and qualities as well as a choice between basic HTML or a hybrid of HTML and CSS (if you have effects on your map you need CSS).
Again, simple but functional, as well as flexible. With this you can place the map anywhere you like on your site. Overall, MapDesign is an outstandingly simple program that does one thing, and does it really well; I am struggling to fault it. If you need an image map created, or think that it would make a good addition to your site, have a look at MapDesign; you may just find you can have it done in 5 seconds flat.
MapDesign is shareware and available for $19.95 at the RAGE software website. The good news is that 5 of you lucky readers won’t have to part with your cash as RAGE has very kindly given us 5 licenses to give away.
To enter all you have to do is comment on this post with a feature that you would most like to see in RAGE MapDesign. Entries will close at 10PM EST on 5th December. Good Luck!
I like the user interface. It looks really nice and Mac-like.
Looks amazing… Nothing I think its missing or could be added.
This site is a total sham. I expect you were given a few licenses or some $$$ for a good review? Seriously, who would want their software posted here after the whole malcor thing.
LOL, at least Sam is still reading the site, right?!
Anyway, I think a good feature to add would be a right-click pop-up with some info on the selection, destination, or options on what to do upon clicking.
Bubba
I’d like the ability to add instant FTP upload.
@ Sam
You can stop reading the site any time you wish. How about going back into your little slice of the internet an throwing a temper tantrum there? Have a nice day. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
LOL @ Sam, ok little fella you go play in your magical wonderland. Seriously mate, if you know a site where I can get paid to write a positive review TELL ME, I will be there in a shot :p I mean I only got paid a couple of million for this, RAGE being the Microsoft that it is.
I am actually steaming right now, just because someone higher up the chain makes a mistake it should NOT reflect on my journalistic integrity you *insert several expletives*.
In all seriousness, I love the idea of FTP built in, but it might bloat the program a bit.
Also, what kind of effects do you people reckon should be included?
It would be handy to add image preview when ‘outputting’ the file. You can select image type (JPEG, etc.) and Quality (High, etc.) … and it would be a nifty addition to have two squares below that where you could see the original on the left and a preview of what the image will look like on the right. Oh, and filesize. That way I could quickly choose medium over high if I discover that it looks good enough, and will save on loading time, etc.
I would like to see two features:
1. To have the MapDesign file reference the image as an external file, rather than duplicate the image within the document. This might help with my second suggestion:
2. The ability to have one imagemap/image trigger multiple image swaps, depending on the coordinates, but only reveal part of the image as a mouseover effect. For example, having a single pie chart image, and as you mouse over the different sections of the pie chart, that section would pop-up a second image, but mask all except the appropriate (assigned) visible area for that section. I guess what I’m getting at is whether there is a way to do this without chopping up the images into many smaller images the way that ImageReady used to do it. This would make it easier to maintain two complete images, and use Javascript/CSS within MapDesign to manipulate the actions/effects as though they were many separate images.
@sam: you sir are a complete nonce. Go troll somewhere else…
As far as MapDesign goes…I want a license!
@Daniel
Other than macapper, I can recommend applematters & glennwolsey as places where people play for product placements. The latter being a one-boy scam… I doubt he will hire you.
As for \’journalistic integrity\’ you cannot be serious. You are posting on mac-crapper.com, remember?
@Sam – yes because I am clearly MacApper.com and not just a writer.
Anyways – moving on! Lets see if we can have a comment thread without any malcor rubbish.
I couldn’t find a way to make a circle an oval. If there isn’t one, that’s what I’d like to see. That would allow a closer fit to a person’s face shape.
Theres a polygon tool that will allow you to create any shape you want I believe.
It’d be cool if you could import images from the web. Just put in a URL from photobucket, tinypic, flickr, or somewhere else.
Integration with online photo service, one click export with proper tags.
Wow! Now THIS is some kicking software! I’d love to see it able to handle animated gifs (if at all possible?) with the ability to have different links per frame. That would be so…very amazing!
That looks like a really awesome app! I would love to have it!
Would love to use this for my wife’s website of her kindergarten class. We could map a collection of photos for each of the kids linked to a class picture. Would like to see ftp built in.
This app looks very useful.
Just to clarify people:
You need to give us a feature you would like to see – not just comment, thanks.
This is the perfect app for something I have been wanting to do on my site!
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So you can only do rectangles?
Looks awesome!
Keep it up!
Best Regards!
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