I'm working on a project where I want to fill the entire background of all the site's screens with a tiled image (side-to-side, top-to-bottom). When I set the Body Background in the Administrator's Site Settings, the image is only tiled horizontally across the top of the screens. My snap reaction was that this is a skin bug. I eventually realized that in other sites the need is to only fill the top of the screens with a tiled image and not the whole screens.

When I at first thought there is a skin bug, I modified the MinimalExtropy\skin.css file and changed the body, background, repeat element from "repeat-x" to "repeat" and got the results I wanted. This approach changed the skinning on all sites that used that skin on that host. Once I realized that in other sites I might want to use the same skin but only fill the top of the screens with a tiled image, I restored the skin file to its original sate and used the Stylesheet Editor in the Site Settings to override the repeat element by simply adding the following to the stylesheet:

BODY {background: repeat;}

This approach had the advantage of only changing the skinning on that one site.

I had submitted a bug report and have now withdrawn it. Now, I'd like to followup on the discussion started in the bug tracker about how the body background is configured.

Having the Body Background setting on the administrator's Site Settings screen as it is now, has the advantage of enabling a site administrator to easily set the body background image without having a knowledge of CSS. However, when setting the body background image, it is common to sometimes want the image only tiled across the top of the screen and other times to want the image tiled through the whole screen. So, it could be argued that if the setting of the body background image is provided by a settings screen entry field, there should also be an entry field for the tiling (repeat) mode (tile top-only or full-screen). This approach would recognize the significance of both settings and provide the ability for an administrator to set the image and tiling mode without having a knowledge of CSS.

However, besides the image URL and tiling mode, there are other properties that pertain to the body background:

background-attachment
background-color
background-position

And, the background-repeat property supports two other values: no-repeat and repeat-y. So, a second set of arguments could be that: (1) if the Site Settings screen is going to directly support (not just through the Stylesheet Editor) the background image, it should also include those additional properties and settings; or (2) that none of the background settings should be directly supported and should only be handled through the Stylesheet Editor.

And, a final argument could be to leave everything the way it is; that since the image setting is already there, leave it, but don't add direct support for any other background properties.

It seems to become a matter of giving capabilities to administrators who do not have more advanced knowledge, such as knowing CSS, versus requiring them to have that knowledge to do certain design work.

I've come to the mindset that the background image should not have been directly supported since it only meets some of the requirements, but that everything should be left the way it is since users are used to the image setting being there and can do everything else through the Stylesheet Editor. I believe that skinning is such a significant part of and benefit to DNN that DNN site designers should be expected to be knowledgeable of it.

And, I'm interested in anybody else's thoughts on this matter.

The biggest benefit to this thought process for me so far has just been getting a better understanding of what has been accomplished with the DNN skinning and the careful thought and decisions that have gone into it.