I’m having a lot of difficulty with items affecting my background. When I place a new HTML item it sometimes (but not always) creates a ‘stripe’ effect across the background graphic - see this page for an example:
As you can see, there are horizontal stripes lying behind each text box, interrupting the background graphic.
I get the same problem if the page has no background graphic. If the background is any sort of colour, the same striping appears, apparently randomly. Only a white background turns the stripes invisible - and I don’t want a white background!
I’ve run a few searches but can’t find anyone else on this forum who’s reported a similar problem, so any help would be very gratefully received.
Many thanks.
SC
(PS Yes, I know the pages are too wide. I’m going to resize them, but I want to fix this problem first.)
Why don’t you just take the image segments and combine them into a larger graphic? Then just apply it as a page background instead of inserting it into different blocks.
Well, yes, that would work - and that’s what I actually did (sort of) in order to arrive at the current background image. However, the background image which I’m now using is the same size as the entire page.
In other words, there are no image segments to combine.
The problem occurs when I place HTML items (text boxes, in this case) over the top of the background.
What appears to be happening in your page is the background image is splitting apart because the content above it is flexing and pushing the image apart. Rather than placing your background graphic on the page and sending to the back as you have done it would be best to (as Dan suggests) add the image as a page background using the Page appearance tab (2nd tab) in the Inspector palette.
Click on the pasteboard so nothing is selected and select the second tab in the Inspector palette (the paintbrush icon). In the background section under Image select your background image as well as how you want it positioned and repeated (if at all). Your image will now flow under the page content and won’t break apart as before.
Regards,
Tim.
On 8 Jul 2011, at 15:32, stephencoltrane wrote:
Well, yes, that would work - and that’s what I actually did (sort of) in order to arrive at the current background image. However, the background image which I’m now using is the same size as the entire page.
In other words, there are no image segments to combine.
The problem occurs when I place HTML items (text boxes, in this case) over the top of the background.
Tim - thank you for your help (and apologies to Dan if I misunderstood his advice).
Your suggestion was partly successful - the background image still breaks apart, but some of the stripes are now filled with sections of background image, so they don’t look quite so awful. However, at the bottom of the page the whole thing breaks up completely, in a way it didn’t before:
So the image is still breaking up, it seems. Is there any way to stop the content above from flexing and causing the break-up? Or is there something else I can try?
I can see you’ve added the image to the page background but I neglected to mention that you should also remove the duplicated image already on the page (item ‘Blogbgd’). You should just be left with the image in the page background.
Your background image is HUGE! At roughly 6.4MBs the file will take a while to load on even the quickest of connections.
Try this;
a. Download this compressed version of the image (http://users.softpress.com/tim/blogbgd.jpg) and use this in place of your original
b. Set your page background colour (again in the Inspector palette) to the hex value D3ECDE which should roughly match the background of your image. Now if the browser is extended beyond the size of the background image the page colour will be shown.
Regards,
Tim.
On 8 Jul 2011, at 16:07, stephencoltrane wrote:
So the image is still breaking up, it seems. Is there any way to stop the content above from flexing and causing the break-up? Or is there something else I can try?
Try this; a. Download this compressed version of the image
Personally I would consider that this at half a meg is still too large.
I would take the text out of the bg image (use Gif text on the page) and compress that bg image even more. This would allow you to move the header up the page - at the moment your main content is actually ‘below the fold’ ie you have to scroll down to read it (unless you have a particularly big/tall screen).
Lets be practical - a background image does not require to be really sharp and detailed.
Thanks for your input, and your good suggestions. I put the text onto the image because I originally had it as a separate layer, but ran into some trouble with it (I forget exactly what the problem was - probably related to the OP!). No reason why I can’t take it off and make it a separate layer again.
How far from the top would you advise the main content to be, bearing in mind the average user? My monitor is 23" but obviously not everyone’s will be this size.
[As I add content to the page I can always grow the text box upwards towards the top (especially as the new content will be added above the existing content).]
Generally I would agree but I’m loathed to overly compress someone else’s artwork down too far just in case the image totally falls apart. 500k is still way too large for a background but compared to the original 6MBs it hopefully shows the direction to take. Looking at this file again I can compress it right down to 60-70k but deciding if it was usable would be Stephen’s call.
Regards,
Tim.
On 8 Jul 2011, at 16:50, DeltaDave wrote:
Personally I would consider that this at half a meg is still too large.
As Tim suggests at 350k there is quite a bit more room for compression.
If your image warrants it there is no reason that you cannot have a higher quality version somewhere else on your site but as a background it is there to provide a ‘look’ - not to be studied.
