copyright © CSSPG, lud October 18 2000

for practical use of CSS
In ciwa.stylesheets, Jelks Cabaniss responded to the following problem by suggesting the use of absolute URLs in CSS files:
> I just started experimenting with style sheets, and have been having > troubles with background images. I am able to view the pages fine locally, > but I.E. 4.0 won't display the background image after I have uploaded the > page and all necessary files. Other graphic files using the same relative > address will display though. Any help would be greatly appreciated. By the > way, this site is just an experiment and is not complete. > You can view the page at http://web.wt.net/~mrmullen
Welcome to IE4, which broke _embedded_ stylesheets after IE3. ;) The only fix I've found for this is to use an absolute URL. Thus
body { background: white url(x.gif) }
becomes
body { background: white url(http://web.wt.net/~mrmullen/x.gif) }
Of course, if you're doing this at home, you'll have to make sure connected to the Net to be able to see your background! <g>
-- Jelks
Note:
This workaround happens to fix a NN4 bug as well. Bug reports have already been filed.
Update:
Jelks reports the reports that the disappearing background bug disappears if you reference the background URL inline, like:
<body style="background: url(blahblah.gif)">