a detailed tutorial?, request for help making a layout. Options

[kathrynista]

mmkay. my problem is that i want to learn how to build a layout and personalize it and everything, and i've looked at several tutorials, browsed the help topics, and frankly its all very overwhelming. i'm new and its hard to understand everything that's said in the tutorials if you don't already know all the jargon. i do know some about the codes like where to fill in what, but what about all the extra steps? it would be super if someone could make a tutorial including every detail. talk to me like i'm stupid. for example, mapped images were mentioned several times and explained a little bit, but i felt like i was already supposed to know something, but i didn't. does that make sense?

My Xanga

[*digital.fragrance*]

hmmm... what jargon would you like to know? I know what you mean - I was in the same boat a few years ago.

Here are some explanations -

Div layer: an invisible box that you can create with your own height and width dimensions. Place anything in it - textboxes, tex, pictures, flash, chatterboxes... anything. They are great for alignng the banner with the repeating blog background in most layouts. They are also your for moving the navgation and blog in xanga.

Image mapping: Everything in a website or image is on a coordinate system... like in math, there is an x and y axis. The dimensions are "pixels." Image mapping creates an invisible shape that when clicked, takes you to the designated link.
Example
Click on the words around the mustang. They are actually part of the image itself, with an invisible link location box on top of it. To position those, you type in the specific coordinates.

Need anything explained further, or something else?