Thanks everyone for your input.

miguel: i agree that those sites are far too complex for xara. tons of stuff going on there.

sledger: thanks for the example. I think that this is useful for situations where I could use a background that was tiled, for example a strong texture or something with some repetition across the top of even the whole page as your example demonstrates. It won;t be applicable for every application but this certainly gives from design flexibility and opens up things for me quite considerably. thanks.

Drwyd: actually the effect I am after is probably smpler than that even. I'm just sort of tired of all my backgrounds having to be a solid clor. I'd like to play around with images or graphic backgrounds. I've "mastered" the solid background and also doing a background with a strip across the top or whatever (you know, the whole create a sliver>export> import>set as background thing). I want to try to create a website with a background that maybe looks like parchment paper or tire tracks or retro wallpaper or a deep forest. I don't want to open dreamweaver. Unless I have to.