The tag for background is put inside the
tag as folllows.
And that is one of the easiest
ways to ruin a presentation as well as one to avoid a sense
of sameness. Avoiding sameness means each background varies from
a single color and certainly from grey. Ruining a presentation
means the background is more interesting than the message. A
presentation can also be completely destroyed by making the text
illegable against the background.
It is a struggle between "look at
this neat background" (with the text illegable against the
colors) and toning it down so that background is not the message.
If you want to show off your backgrounds, create a page like this
one. Why else would I do it?
Tone it down by making certain the
text is in a color different from any color in the background,
preferably contrasting, and is large enough to be readable. If
all else fails make the text larger. If that fails, change the
background no matter how "cool."
And that means IF you include a
background image ALWAYS specify the text color. Many people
change the defaults so you have no assurance they will be using
the defaults of their browser. And beyond that, if you know what
the defaults are on all browsers, post it some place so everyone
can read it and email me the URL to it. I would like to know.
That said you have probably
browsed some of the background libraries. You may have a
collection that takes up more space than your icon collection.
However, there is something misleading about those collections,
they are all square.
Browsers do not require that.
Browsers written to the specification "tile as required" sort of
like the Windows option for a background image, either centered
or tiled. You like rectangles? Create a rectangular one and it
will fill the screen with identical rectangles. It will also
duplicate a one pixel wide or high image and it will be
duplicated. You want to shade from top to bottom? A one pixel
wide vertical line will do instead of the entire page.
Note the "as required." You can
size a single image that will fill the screen and that one image
will be the background and will not be duplicated. Browse
http://www2.combase.com/~mgiwer/mgiwer5/ and read "basic and
related documents of the United States" for an example.
However, note they get big and
that takes time. Use JPEG, make the quality as low as possible
without making with pixels obvious and above all, make certain it
contributes to the page. If someone is to wait to see your
background make certain he will be happy rather than pissed at
the wait. At least give the impression you tried.
The following are some obligatory
examples created with Kai Power Tools 1.0 and modified with
Photoshop 2.5. Those that look similar are from the same source.
Move your cursor over them and use the rat button (see theft
notes below) to see the related names if you are interested.
This is really so easy and fast it is "too hard" to keep track of
the changes by name and list them here.
In other words, with these two
tools there is never a reason to go to a
background library again. You can make every background you want
unique. You can have a slightly different set that are all from
the same original image.