What's the name of the technique combining images for nav?

Each option gets zoomed in on

[Clark]

I forgot which a list apart article it is that describes the technique of one background image...like how Zeldman's navigation has one image with an "active" and "inactive" part and depending which one is selected it changes color. It also changes color when you hover. Can anyone give me the name of the technique? Thanks.

[alias]

hi,

theoretically it's 'css image map' - having one image and only showing a part that's required at a given moment.

Martin

[swa66]

Since I don't "follow" ALA, I'm not sure how they call it. But I think of it as "CSS sprites". Although for just a background image shift I think I first used it in a sliding windows menu somewhere.

Once you grasp the technique the name isn't that relevant anymore ;-)

[phranque]

personally, i call them rollover images but i'm not sure that is an technical term.
as mentioned above, these are typically accomplished with css using the hover property or with javascript using the onmouseover/onmouseout events.
the technique involves replacing the "normal" image with a hover/rollover image whenever the mouse is "over" an element and usually returning to normal when elsewhere.

[Clark]

It seems css sprites has the tutorial I was looking for. I'm working on it now. Of course, since this is css it doesn't work right off the bat so I have to build it from scratch to see why the hell not. sigh. But thanks everyone :)

[swa66]

Clark,

The homepage of ask.com typically is a beautiful example of css sprites in active use. It might be an inspiration.

They recently updated it, but it's still using CSS sprites.

[Clark]

will check it now.