What is the difference between my journal style and the site skin?

Journal styles are used to customize the colors and page setup of the pages where you post your content. Styles may be customized using the built-in templates and color schemes. You have the ability to completely customize your journal using CSS. Advanced users can use the S2 programming language to design the whole journal from scratch.

There are are a number of FAQs describing how to customize your personal journal or your community style. They're listed on the FAQ - Journal Styles page.

The site skin is the look of the main site or account pages on Dreamwidth Studios, which include the dreamwidth.org homepage, account management pages, search pages, etc. Nearly all of the content on these pages is generated by Dreamwidth itself, and the options for changing the colors and layout are much more limited in comparison to journal pages.

You can change the way the main site pages look with the Display tab of the Account Settings page. There are several options you can choose from — they will apply only to the official Dreamwidth pages, not to any of the journals or communities on the site.

You can also choose to have all comment pages, both in your journal and in all other journals, display in the site skin rather than in the look of your journal. To do this, go to the Display tab of the Account Settings page. Setting the "Entry Pages: Shown To You" to "Site Skin" will mean you always see entry and comment pages in the site skin, even if you're viewing a journal that has chosen another version of the entry and comment page. Unchecking the box for "Entry Page Default: Your Journal", labeled "Show my journal's entry pages in my chosen style instead of the site skin", will only show entry and comment pages in your own journal in the site skin.

Our default site skin is "Tropospherical Red". You can return to it at any time.

If you wish to use a site skin with minimal graphics, select the "Lynx" scheme.