How wide can/should website background be - any recommendations?

[cristal]

Hey,

Is there some recommended width for website background so that it would function as perfectly as possible in different browsers and different sizes of screens....? The backgrounds of the sites are images (i mean one background = one image) and I set the width to 1200, and I realized just now that you can continue to make them wider than 1200 too..... I hadn't thought about this before that there probably are some width recommendations.

Can anyone say are there some recommendations for how wide the background should be for the best results? Also when using images as the backgrounds, isn't this pretty important thing - so that image is what it should be in for example different screens sizes etc? So that it won't get "repeated" if the screen's wide, but the website background settings aren't wide enough and the image "ends" and then starts again.

Thanks!

[Vasili]

Re: How wide can/should website background be - any recommendations?

Current accepted wisdom for page width is 960 pixels wide (based on the 16 column grid system).

To protect an image used for a background from tiling, it should be at least 1750 pixels wide (to accommodate nearly all monitor resolution settings), and at least 1100 pixels tall (taller, if you wish to have a taller page).

* Be sure to have "optimized" the file size of any images being used as backgrounds, keeping them under 100kb for efficient loading. Simply open them using PixResizer (available as a free download from VodaHost) and re-save them with an "optimized" Title at the same time.

[cristal]

Re: How wide can/should website background be - any recommendations?

Thanks for the info! wow that sounds a lot - if I make it so wide will it then look normal in smaller computer screens too....? How about the actual page on top of the background. If the background is so wide, how do I get the page centered?

[Vasili]

Re: How wide can/should website background be - any recommendations?

If you pages do not exceed the maximum recommended width, they will display properly "centered" against the background images specified in all monitors, despite the resolutions each individual Visitor has set ... providing you properly configure your sized background as detailed.

Centering Page in Browser:
PAGE PROPERTIES > GENERAL (tab) > select "Center Page" - "Center this page in browser window horizontally"

Selecting Background Image:
PAGE PROPERTIES > FORMATTING (tab) > BACKGROUND > Image: use "Button" to browse/select image to be used.

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