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I have been holding on this for some time, and I finally was able to overcome an Internet Explorer quirk, so I figured I might as well just release this into the "production code"... Basically, if you look on the Appearance tab in the Website Settings module of the Admin Console, you can now specify to use an image / pattern for your website background, sort of like having wallpaper.


If you would like to use your own image rather than one of the supplied images, you can do that via the Upload Button. You can also download one of the supplied system images for your later modification by right clicking on the thumbnail on the right side.

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If you upload and use your own images, keep in mind that static GIFs seem to work well, because they are compressed, and they have limited color depth. Also, remember that smaller, more compressed images load faster and will not slow down your website loading as much. I do not recommend JPGs, even though they are small... if you try them, you will likely see some of the problems I ran into w/ transparency, or the lack thereof. PNG files seem to be too big.

If you use much larger image files than you really need, you will see a noticeable slow-down in how fast your website loads. This is because of the time that your browser is spending scaling the image and then rendering it multiple times.

There is certainly the possibility that you may be able use this feature in creative ways, such as using a city skyline or an outdoors scene for your background images. However, keep in mind that anything really fancy may slow down your website loading... I recommend doing some experimentation before committing to a particular image.

Lastly, see the following Google Search results for some creative ideas:
www.google.com/search?q=repeating+skylin...imgrc=bXHbEPtTAeBN0M:

Ok, I am kind of getting a bit sold on the "movie clip" GIF as a background.... (I did not originally think it was a good idea.)

I tried it with my home club's website: www.mindfulcommunicators.org/

Note, however, that even with the selected GIF, the motion is very gentle (not jarring) and the color palette of the GIF I selected matches what is used in the actual website.