I recall someone asked this a while ago, so as always, I'm happy to share the knowledge. :)

The advantage of an externally-hosted live preview is that it's there as long as you want it to be, not to mention you don't have to keep creating 1974324 new journals and communities for each of your layouts.

( How to host your own live previewCollapse )

The new subject permalinks aren't all that bad -- not only do they make it easier to access your posts when your layout doesn't have an "Edit" option, but you can also use them to hide the dash in the Smooth Sailing post subjects! This is a picture of what I'm talking about:


You can see the fix in action at spire's current layout.

( How to hide the subject dashCollapse )

Note: This tutorial applies only to any Smooth Sailing layouts I make with the topbar.

I code with the Navstrip, because 1) I use it frequently, and 2) it's the LJ standard, but I realized that a lot of people don't like it. That said, here's some general information on removing it and fixing your CSS so it isn't all warped up. I'm pretty sure this should work for every case, but let me know if there happens to be an exception.

Find the .sidebar selector and the top property contained therein:

.sidebar {
...
top: VALUEpx
...
}

Now all it takes is some simple arithmetic on your part. Take that value and subtract 45 from it. For instance, the Sea Glass and Cherry Blossom layouts have a top value of 177px, so replace that with 132. Save your changes and the sidebar should be properly positioned.

EDIT DECEMBER 2008: I will no longer be updating this tutorial, due to my recent policy change when it comes to helping with CSS edits.

I like my layouts simple, so I don't create them with headers in mind, but they can be easily altered to adapt to that purpose. This tutorial will explain how to add header images. The tutorial is organized by layout theme and structure. It may be updated as I add more stylesheets to this community.

Please note that this guide is very general and might not work perfectly for each of the stylesheets -- just the majority. If your layout of choice is not covered by the tutorial, then I'm afraid I cannot provide any further support. I don't have the time or attention to go over every single individual case -- if you're determined to get a header in, I suggest employing Firebug and learning a bit about CSS. It's not that hard, trust me!

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT BROWSER COMPATIBILITY: These tutorials are tested only on the latest version of Firefox. Other browsers, especially Internet Explorer, may not render them correctly.

( Tutorial under cutCollapse )