First, my apologies for not writing for so long. There has been so much happening and so many cool things out there now.

We especially enjoy finding new features that anyone can implement. Even someone without any coding knowledge what-so-ever.

With the new releases of WordPress, it is now extremely easy to customize the background of your WordPress theme, for self hosted installations.

From your Admin Dashboard, click on the Appearance button on the left and then click Editor.

Locate the file called functions.php in the list on the right and click the file name.

In the editor window, scroll down to the bottom of the file just before the last “?>” and type in the following text:

add_custom_background();

Now click the save button at the bottom of the page.

If you now click on the Appearance button on the left again, you should now see a choice for Backgrounds appear in the list. If you click on this, you will be able to replace the current background with an image or any color you choose.

You can also control the way images repeat and their alignment.

So easy isn’t it?

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With many web design projects, it is seemingly the items with the most subtle results that can require the most effort. This is certainly true with backgrounds.

You have probably seen some cool effects like stripes or other background patterns that seem to set off the design of a web page perfectly. Well now these professional, subtle looking effects can easily be implemented into your own pages with a minimal amount of effort thanks to the efforts of a few programmers.

The following is a list of online background pattern generators that will create a background pattern for you to download and use in your web design. We hope you find these useful.

Background Maker

bgMaker offers a very simple interface. As you make changes to the box, you can see the visual result immediately. Once you are happy with the result, click save and the background image is saved to your computer. This site relies completely upon your own creativity to develop a background pattern.

BgPatterns.com

We have featured this site before in Online Background Pattern Generator. This site is also very easy to use and offers a wide variety of pre-built background images to help get your creative juices flowing.

COLOURlovers.Com

This site is similar to BgPatterns in that it offers a library of patterns to get you started. You may also upload your own patterns and customize them on the site. They seem to have a very active community of users to share your ideas with. One major advantage that this web site has is that it is available in 12 languages.

Dotted Backgrounds Generator

This is a very simple to use background generator for creating a series of dots that gradually disappear down the screen. The features and options of this background generator are a bit limited, but the results are good.

Pattern Cooler

This online generator has one of the best libraries of professional looking patterns I have seen. Each of these can be customized to your own color combination as well. If there is a specific type of pattern you are looking for, the home page offers a set of tags at the top to point you in the right direction.

Striped Backgrounds

This site only offers striped backgrounds. But this is sometimes the subtle touch that a web page or header may need. Like the other entries, this site is very easy to use and the results can be downloaded to your own computer with the click of a button.

Stripe Designer

This online generator is not as easy to use as some of the others. But it does offer a bit more than just stripes. You can also add a background image to the background and add a striped, or other type of texture as an overlay.

Stripe Generator

This is one of the easier online stripe generators we used. There are far more options available to give your striped background that professional Web 2.0 look and feel. Once you decide on your color scheme, you can also create a tartan background pattern with the same color scheme with the click of a button.

Stripe Mania

While the features of this online generator weren’t as many as some of the others, the results were impressive. With fewer options to worry about, we were able to develop a more professional set of Web 2.0 stripes in a shorter period of time. The user interface is pleasing to the eye and very intuitive.

Tartan Maker

While a tartan background wouldn’t be our first choice for some of our web sites, we were impressed by the output from this online generator. If you are looking for a subtle yet professional tartan background, this is your site. The user interface is very simple to use as were most of our entries. This is a sister site to Stripe Generator and if you have the need to generate image reflections or generate navigation tabs, these folks offer an online generator for you as well.

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In another one of our projects, we had a design that required a white content area with the area behind it filled with a pattern. Unfortunately, the background pattern was something that the client was not happy with at all.

In the interest of time, they asked us if we could find something nice and fix the pattern. Even though this background pattern is a fairly small part of the website, it has a large visual impact on the site. Therefore, it was important that I spend some time finding several options for the client to review. As I carried out a frustrating, time consuming search for mediocre patterns, I ran across the Tiled Backgrounds Desginer website.

Within a few minutes I had three different homepages for review, each with a diiferent pattern and corresponding style. The tools is very easy to use and provides a tabbed interface for building your own background patterns. You have the option of specifying your colors, pattern images, scale, opacity, canvas and even the rotation of the pattern.

I highly recommend this tool for every Web Designers arsenal of tools.

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