Layout help for the utterly clueless?

[blackmare]

I know there are plenty of custom layouts available for DW, but it's like pressing my nose against the candy shop window and knowing I can't have any, while the other kids are in there getting toffee and chocolates.

You see, none of the instructions I have found even make sense to me.  I'm not literate with coding and I don't even know what most of the references are to layers, etc., so I seem to be stuck. I need someone to actually walk me through this. I tried once on my own and the results were awful.

Please, is there a Guide for The First-Timer? Preferably with visuals, so that "Enter X code in Y layer" translates to "Type this code into this field right here on this page, see?" 

If there is, it'll help drive a lot more users here, IMO. The two biggest obstacles I'm seeing at LJ are "none of my friends are moving" and "I would move but I hate DW's styles."

For what it's worth, I've already moved, and paid, because my privacy is more important than my layout, but I feel the frustration all the same. 

Comments

[blackmare]

Okay, that's still ... scary-looking to me, but I'll give it a shot when I get home tonight. If it turns out I can make this work, I'll link the tutorial for other users too.

Thank you so much!

[matgb]

As an aside though, yes, it does look scary. Fixing it to make it non-scary is On The List, but as it's, normally, somethign that most people don't do, it's not been prioritised.

However, it's actually quite easy, once you get passed the horrible interface inherited from Livejournal. When the interface frontend gets completely rewritten, it'll be a very powerful tool that isn't scary, hopefully.