Dreamweaver, Window Size/Status Bar & Spry

Just trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong here:

Created a background graphic in Illustrator (720x500) and then started a new page in Dreamweaver. First objective was to get the background in place. So I edited the CSS for the Body tag and entered in the PNG file, centered, fixed, no-repeat.

When I did this, the whole top of the background file is cut off in the Dreamweaver window (it shows up centered and in full in the browser preview). So I went to the "Set Magnification" drop-up box and tried to click "View All", but nothing happens. When I reduce the percentage, the background graphic gets lost on the top left of the screen (in other words, its not centered and still cut off). And when I try to change the window size in the Status Bar, I find all the dimensions greyed out.

By minimizing the properties & results menus down below, I was able to see almost all of the background. So I just dismissed the problem and continued on.

I then created a Spry Menu, which was placed top-left. I edited the CSS file and inserted some margin on the top and left so that it would show up in the area I needed it (per the background image). After getting it in place, I opened up my browsers (Opera & IE) to find that it still had a ways to go. But when I insert additional margin in Dreamweaver, it throws the Spry Menu into the middle of my background page (rather than the side).

Is there a way to (1) view the whole page I'm working on? What is going on? and (2) Why is there a disconnect between where I see the Spry menu in Dreamweaver & where it ends up on the browser?

Thanks a TON!!

You are correct in your interpretation.

When I open a panel window (CSS Window, Properties Windows) all of the Absolute Divs, Spry Menus, etc. all move, while the background stays where it is (although portions of it become invisible). (In other words, when I pull out the CSS Window Panel from the right hand side of the screen, everything I'm designing on the webpage itself shifts to the left. Likewise, when I pull up the Properties Window Panel from the bottom, everything on the actual page I'm designing (div tags, spry menus, etc.) get pushed upwards. As a result, everything I'm designing on the page gets all jumbled everywhere. Of course, when I preview in a browser, it looks like it should (or close to that of the page when the panels are minimized/hidden). Why is this? Is there a way in the program to show everything at a minimized ratio when pulling out a panel?

PS. Changing the % of the magnification does not do this. (Decreasing the magnification moves the background image to the top left corner of my screen and all of the CSS overlays are still jumbled up).

Thanks for the responses!
Just to know that it appears to be a limitation is good information in itself.

When reading through Dreamweaver CS3 Missing Manuals - it talked about how people use a background with all the buttons and all in that background image - and then I suppose overlay a blank box over those buttons. Per what I'm seeing here - that doesn't seem a great idea (due to the laborious nature of positioning everything properly and then having it show up on each browser properly.) Do absolute div tags perhaps solve this? Or is the background image method frowned upon?

I am basically working on designing a page with a TV set type of layout (top, sides, and bottom are images and then the content would appear in the middle). Is it best to maybe just slice this all up and not post it as a background?

Thanks a bunch!