Slices, Rollovers, and Hotspots

Slices are the basic building blocks for creating interactivity in Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004. Slices are web objects--they exist not as images, but ultimately as HTML code. You can view, select, and rename them through the Web Layer in the Layers panel. This chapter discusses the concepts central to slicing and gives procedures for using slices to incorporate interactivity into your web pages.

Using the drag-and-drop rollover method of attaching interactivity to slices, you can quickly create rollover and swap-image effects in the workspace. You can view the assigned behaviors in the Behaviors panel and create more complex interactions using this panel.

You can also incorporate interactivity into your web pages with hotspots. Hotspots are used to create an image map, which is HTML code that defines a hot region in an HTML document. These regions do not necessarily link anywhere; they could just trigger a behavior or define alternate text. Hotspots can also receive mouse events, allowing JavaScript behaviors to be acted on in slices.