What's the best way to ...

[Toffee]

Hi,

I'm using Dreamweaver and I'd like to create a web page with a dark coloured background and have a rounded-rectangle layered on top (prefereably with a slight drop-shadow). Do I create one large rectangle graphic and put it in a layer? Or is there a better way to do it and keep the pages quite light on the graphics for better downloading of the pages?

Many thanks for your help!

Toffee

Examples of the sort of style I mean:
www.bounce-media.com
www.clovertelecom.co.uk
www.beadesigngroup.com

With a simple line is nice too:
www.abc-office-furniture.co.uk

 

[AunStudio]

Hi,

The graphics on those pages are actually placed at the very top and bottom of the box only, and a 1-pixel height graphic is placed as a repeating background (of the table cell) covering the entire area where the content is located, also allowing for vertical stretching.

This is a very common technique and all the graphics which compose the rounded corner box shouldn't take more than 50 k altogether.

Cheers,

 

[compumodo]

you can create the rounded rectangle box, then slice it in three.

slice the top and bottom for the header and footer, and slice a thin strip somewhere in the middle for the content. with the thin middle slice you can have that image repeat to make your middle as large or small as you like. If you compress everything right, you shouldn't have any loading problems, I have used this technique for sites with the entire design portion being under
5k