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SO YOU WANT TO ESCAPE FROM CORE 2, HUH. well I can tell you how to do that. No word of a lie I got so fed up with how unattractive the core 2 layouts looked that I spent three hours fiddling with existing livejournal layouts until giving up, resorting to a tutorial, and figuring out how to do it myself.

thefulcrum put up an AMAZING tutorial livejournal-side, here, for porting their Mixit layouts over. Luckily, it's pretty translatable to the other styles as well! This site is like a goldmine for existing livejournal styles, but there is a downside: in order to install it exactly like thefulcrum suggests, you have to go in there and manually edit the css print function with the existing stylesheet you want. Which, if you don't know what to look for, can be a pain in the ass. IF YOU WANT TO BE AMBITIOUS (and you can), generally the rule of thumb is to go until you get to some variant of:

function print_stylesheet() {
"""

and erase the pseudo-css until you get roughly to

""";

print_custom_control_strip_css();
}

Remembering, of course, to keep everything up to and including """ still in tact, and only deleting the variable-recall css. Replace this with the hardcoded CSS you want from a custom layout community, in a layout relating to your code of choice. Then you just finish the install as per normal, following the layout-maker's instructions for proper installation AFTER you finish following the tutorial's instructions.

Like I said, a pain in the ass, but the results are worth it. However I have figured out that you can bypass the editing process for smooth sailing (which is great, because smooth sailing is an utter pill to edit).

( Quick n Dirty smooth sailing hijack guide )

There are some bugs; namely, dw puts the memories category twice in your menu, but that's easy enough to get rid of. Just fiddle around with your customizations and you should find something that works. SO FAR I only know that this method works with Smooth Sailing, as I tested it out at evoker earlier this evening. Kind of ghetto but whatever, you kids aren't fussy.

EDIT: I fine-tuned a version of the smooth sailing core script, here. This includes a fix for getting usernames to show up on yours friendspage, which is a glitch that occurred when the variable name was switched in development. You can use this with thefulcrum's tutorial and not have to do the fine-editing yourself, just look for the massive BOX OF DOOM for where to paste your css.

I'll probably end up uploading updated scripts for the other designs as well. eventually. maybe. if i can be bothered.