I'm having a few problems with getting a color from the general html palatte which looks good for my side index (their all to dark).

I'm considering using a small jpg and repeating it to get the right color - are there any problems with doing this?

Another question. The color I want is almost exactly the color of the background of my initial message (#EFEFF7) This is not one of the web safe colour given in the dreamweaver palatte. Am I going to bugger things up for some browsers if I use it?

Well, if a browser or system doesn't support the color would it make a difference if you used a jpg or the color? I'd think one way or the other the color wouldn't show correctly. Mind as well just use the html color to keep load time lower.

Justin's correct. Since the color you're specifying isn't part of the 216-color palette, your end results will vary dramatically from one user to the next depending on that user's video card, color palette and the monitor resolution.

How does it work then. If the browser does not show that specific colour, will it show the closest match (which wouldn't be to bad) or could it just display any color (which would be a nightmare).

Any suggestions why this BB would use this color, when its not in the 216 palatte?

Yes, depending on the color palette/video card available/resolution/monitor, the browser will either attempt to display the color regardless (in other words, its own interpretation of the color) or pick the nearest closest color available in its range.

Not all web designers are aware of the limitations of color monitors et. al. around the Net, and it's sometimes more a personal preference of whether you want to limit yourself to the 216-color palette, or take a punt and use the entire 16.7 mil colors anyway.

On my site I use png repeat for the background, as it was the only I could get the background on my logo, and page to match.

Originally posted by JTY
On my site I use png repeat for the background, as it was the only I could get the background on my logo, and page to match. Right, the idea of the 216 "web safe" colors only applies to the GIF image format, which is limited to a palette of only 256 colors to begin with. Using a .png can be one solution, and it has the advantages of lossless compression, graduated transparency, and built-in gamma correction. Almost too good to be true, but not all browsers will support .png images.

Chilliboy might also try to get around the problem by sticking with a .gif but using dithering to give the "illusion" of the color he's looking for (at the expense of increased file size/load times). To that, though, requires a fairly capable graphics package. Macromedia Fireworks or Adobe ImageReady are two that would be appropriate.

As for this:Any suggestions why this BB would use this color, when its not in the 216 palatte?They use it because they like the way it looks, and they don't really care that it will look different on a Mac than it does under Windows.