Easy question for the experts

[tenaki]

Hi all

I have a header that is 780px wide which looks fine but.......I would like to create one that fits to any size screen if that makes sense?

Like the header on this site expands to full screen.

I have seen these headers made up of say a logo on a background but when viewed on a photo editor it is just a very thin slither!! I am confused.

How do I get my header to expand to 100%

How do you do it?

[blastradius]

You have your table in html with the width set to 100%. now with your td tags have one td for the logo set the width to the width of the logo. Now you will have a td tag that will expand across the screen. So you need to set the td width to 100%. A simple method would just use a bg color say blue, a more complex method which you discribed uses an image which can be just a sliver because the images is set to the bg of the td tag. This will automatically tile the image so it continuous all the way across the screen. You could also use the css to control the tiling of an image in the cell.

[tenaki]

That makes sense thank you, Is there a way I can use my .gif image.

If I open it up in an editor and say copy and cut out a small section and use that as the bg image. Would that work

[cyanide]

That makes sense thank you, Is there a way I can use my .gif image.

If I open it up in an editor and say copy and cut out a small section and use that as the bg image. Would that work

yep, it would.
As blastradius said, css is the preferred method.
Like this:
.barBlack {
background-image: url(../images/effects/any.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-x;
}
If you look at the WebProWorld header there's that long horizontal bar running horizontally with the blue fading up into the white, it's actually a gradient, which you can make as small as 1 or 2 pixels wide and it will stretch automatically.

[blastradius]

Yeah, to echo cyanide that would work. Infact it is the best way to creat this effect. Taking a section from your original image should ensure that everything will line up correctly in the end.

[tenaki]

Ta very much.

It is my project for the weekend so watch out, I could be back

[cyanide]

Ta very much.

It is my project for the weekend so watch out, I could be back

no problem ...
bring it !!

and next time, show us a link ?!
so we can see how 'ya doin'

hi :)!

all the above recommendations above are great!

in addition:

if you are at all familiar w/ Flash another option is to make a simple 1 frame Flash movie(.swf) and set the SCALE to "Exact Fit" when you embed it into your html....and use percentages (width=100%) to set your tables, cells, etc....

Flash employes the use of vector-drawn graphics('drawing with math') and also greatly reduces filesize of imported bitmaps upon export....

and if you stick w/ vectors only then your header will not distort even if the screen was (hypothetically) 30 feet wide.......

[also understand that FLash sharply divides to designing community to those who either love it and those who simply abhore it..ask any C programmer/purist and they will laugh at flash's kinda happenstance OOP{object-oriented-programming} Action Script...hence this disclaimer] lol

good luck to you w/ this :)
DAREN!
http://webpageturner.com