Adding color or backgrounds to page elements

You can add color to the backgrounds of objects such as table cells, layout text boxes, layout grids and floating boxes--or instead of color, you can add a tiled image to an object's background just like you do with page backgrounds.

If you want to match the background color with a color in an image or other element on the screen, you can use the Color palette's eyedropper to extract the color, use the Web Color List in the palette to find the closest Web-safe approximation of the color, and apply the matching color to the background.

For information on coloring text, see Applying fonts, type sizes, and color to text.

To apply color to an object:

1. Select the object (such as a layout grid) in the page.
2. Click a color field in the Inspector. Clicking the color field automatically opens the Color palette.
3. In the Color palette, select a color from one of the color sets. (The Web Color List is the best and most frequently used set for displaying colors on the Web. See Using the Color palette.)

GoLive automatically applies the color to the color field in the Inspector, activates the Color option for the color field if needed, and applies the color to your current selection in the page.

To color selected text or an object, you can also drag a color from the Colors tab in the site window or the preview pane in the Color palette to the selection in the page, the Text Color field on the toolbar, or a color field in the Inspector. The Colors tab in the site window lets you individually name colors for your Web site project. (See Using site colors.)

To extract a color using the eyedropper:

1. In the Color palette, click the Web Color List button .
2. Move the pointer to any color swatch in the palette, so that the pointer changes to an eyedropper . Then press the mouse button and drag the eyedropper to the color in the image or on the screen that you want to extract.

Notice the colors change in the preview pane of the Color palette as you drag the eyedropper, and the closest matches to Web-safe colors are listed on the right side of the palette. When you release the mouse, the extracted color is selected in the preview pane.

3. Select a Web safe color from the list that matches the extracted color and then apply the color to selected text or objects.

You can save the extracted color to use on other pages in your site by dragging it to the Colors tab in the site window. (See Using site colors.)

To add a tiled image to the background of an object:

1. Select the object, such as a table, floating box or layout grid.
2. In the Inspector, select the Background Image (or BGImage) option and specify the image file in the URL reference text box. (See Linking files.)

Note: Avoid using a background image alone in a floating box. In Netscape browsers, background images or color may not display unless there are other objects or text in the box as well. To work around this problem, you can add a transparent GIF image to the empty box. (See Adding special page elements.)