.gif a background

[kosar]

what is the most efficient way to use a gif for a background but keep you loading time down?

[benihana]

its simple: the smaller the file size (kb) the faster the loading. there are various ways to get s amll files size, including:

no animation
small pixel dimensions
fewest colours possible.

ben

[Farix]

There is always PNG which is smaller then all but the smallest, most simplest of GIFs.

[dillonstars]

Also, you should apply the background with the CSS file rather than embedded into the html. You can do this by redefining the body tag to apply the background to the whole page or by using a class to define a div or table cell background.

You can get heaps more info on this in the CSS forum.

This will speed up your pages loading, as the css file only has to be read once for the whole site and not for every page.