One of the trickier forms of CSS syntax is that of background properties, especially when using the shorthand form. This post will focus on the background-image property. When used correctly, the background-image property will enable you to create visually superior websites. Many of today's top Web 2.0 sites use this property, often combined with a repeating gradient image that blends into a background color.

First, an overview of the complete set of background properties and some brief descriptions:

For a more detailed breakdown, please see the W3Schools website.

The background properties can be brought together into a single line of shorthand CSS. We do not need to specify all the property values; we can use any one or more of them as follows:

If you have two values for the background-position property, they must appear together. And if we use length or percentage values, they must appear as horizontal first and vertical second. As long as you have at least one value present, you can omit all the rest. Other than that, there isn't any restriction on the order or particular properties to be included. If you omit any property values, then their default values are applied automatically. So, the following two declarations render the same output:

The page you are looking at had its left navigation and main content area colors set by using a single 780 X 5 pixel, vertically-repeating image. The following CSS was employed:

This shorthand syntax is faster to type and easier to use than the full version. Using background images is an incredibly powerful way to take control of the overall look of your website.