Wissahickon,
Firstly I find your mouse/typing issue extremely unusual - in fact this is the first time I've come across this. What web browser are you using if you don't mind me asking?
This video I made might help a little:
blog.joomlabear.com/adding-gradients-edges-
background-images/
As to your template background image question there are actually many ways you can do this. I will try to explain how it works technically and hopefully this will give you enough insight into the process - otherwise you are more than welcome to send us your images and login details and we can organise the changes for you.
As I mentioned previously the simplest approach is to just replace the background image file(s) that are on your live site currently - if you do it this way then you must use the jpeg format because you are replacing the current jpegs - also the file name(s) must be exactly the same.
However, if you want to go a step further you can actually use any image format and any image name.
If we have a look at the /css/ directory:
transbear.joomlabear.com/templates/transbear/css/
You can see a series of css files - if you click, for example, bg2.css you will see this code:
transbear.joomlabear.com/templates/transbear/css/
bg2.css
The line that reads:
background-image: url(../images/background2/background.jpg);
This specifies the image to use and the image path - so if we edited this .css file we could change it to a custom image name, e.g. image-1.gif, or mybackground.png.
In this way you have complete control over the backgrounds that are used.
But back to the simpler approach - if we look at the template images directory:
transbear.joomlabear.com/templates/transbear/
images/
and you can see sub directories for background1/ background2/ etc - if you click on any of these you will see:
transbear.joomlabear.com/templates/trans.../
images/background1/
If you simply make images in the same format and size as these and replace the ones in each directory, this will just work, and probably is the most straightforward.
A consideration of file formats is probably also worthy - for anything photographic you should always use jpg - you will get a better quality and smaller file size than .gif or .png.
.png is extremely good for gradients - e.g. fading light to dark - and .gif and .png are both very efficient for crisp minimal color range images such as logos.
The dimensions of the image should be enough to fill all common screen sizes - in my opinion.
My preferred option is to aim for about 1400 pixels wide and about 1100 pixels high. See the video posted at start.
And your question regarding replacing 1 or all of the backgrounds - again optional - if you navigate to the admin area of your Joomla site - to the template manager - and click on the template title 'Transbear' you will then see parameters for the template - here you can choose to show the background selector or hide it and select one image to use for the background.
Many people liek this option and only want to use one background.
Lastly, if all that seems like a headache, email me through large versions of your background images and we make adjustments for you.
Hope this helps.
