Repeating CSS Sprites

[PMichaud]

I'm almost sure this is impossible, but I thought I'd ask before I gave up on the idea.

Most people know about the sprite technique, which is essentially that one combines all their style images (like bullet graphics, and icons, for example) into one larger image file and refers to them via CSS by the coordinates. This saves http requests and bandwidth.

What I'd like to know is whether a similar technique can be applied to images meant to be background images that repeat. For example, if I have a geocities super awesome homepage with a chainlink fence background on the body and a butterfly background in the content window, is there a way to combine those into the same image, reference to them by their coordinates, AND make them repeat in the background?

[Paul O'B]

I'm almost sure this is impossible, but I thought I'd ask before I gave up on the idea.

Correct its impossible

You can only repeat the whole image and not just a section of it.

Although thinking about it you could probably repeat in one direction along a single line, as long as the element it was displayed in was only as wide (or as high if repeating vertically as the image you want to repeat).

[PMichaud]

That's a good thought -- won't work for my particular situation, but it's something to bear in mind.

I guess we'll just throw that feature with the rest that are easy to implement, impossible to roll out in the current browser climate 8/