Everything you want to do is css, no S2 needed!

For the first, you want to use

.asset-meta-comments .asset-meta-no-comments { font-size: 11px; }

or whatever font size you want for those links.

For the header image it's

#header-inner { background-repeat: no-repeat; }

You can also phrase that as just { background: url(file-path-to-picture) no-repeat; }

And the easiest way to take out the nav links at the top is

.nav { display: none; }

The other way to do that does involve S2, and I'm not conversant enough myself to give good directions. ^_^

The sidebar background color can be changed with

#beta, #beta-inner { background: #ffffff; }

or whatever color you want to use. You might also need to add that command to .widget or .widget-inner.

As for the main column width, you should be able to define that with

#alpha, #alpha-inner { width: insert-width-here; }

Though you might also need to define the width of .post-asset or .asset-inner or .asset-content. It varies a little with different themes.

Ah, I see. Is there something else you want to show behind the content, to either side? There are a couple different things that might work. You'll have to specify the width for one or all of the following: #page, #page-inner, #container, #container-inner. It is possible you'll also have to give a width for one or all of #header, #header-inner, #content, #content-inner.

Expressive has a /lot/ of container divs. *wry* One of them is obviously set to a wider width than you want. If you have the patience, you can look at your source code and find the urls of all five style sheets and go look through them to see what elements are set too wide so you can override them specifically. Or you can just go with the bigger-hammer approach and define /everything/ at the width you want. *grins* It really is handy, once you get into multiple-background layouts; you can make everything in there exactly the size you want. Just as soon as you figure out the name of the div around the bit you need to affect!

To get rid of your journal name, you'll want to set both #header-name and #header-description to {display:none";}

And to affect how large the header shows, you'll want to apply { height: 400px; width: 700px} to #header and #header-inner. And possibly #header-content, #header-content-inner and #header-text as well. Just remember that a background image doesn't affect the size of the container the way an embedded image does.

See if that works.

Thank you! And this has nothing to do with the width anymore, but branchandroot suggested I ask you, since you seem to be an expert on S2? *g* Do you, by any chance, know how I can change my header into an image map? I know how to do it with basic html, but I'm lost when it comes to CSS, and even more so when it comes to S2...

Thank you! And great layout.

My pleasure! And nice layout. ^_^

Hmmm. I think I know, theoretically, how an image map would be done with css... but I've never done one in css myself. *frowns* At that, it might be necessary to mess around in S2 to make it work. I can't give you a good answer for that, I'm afraid, but you might ask nimoloth (one comment upstream), who is one of the S2 people around here whether she knows a way.

No problem! I'm afraid that's partly a function of how the style sheet makes the columns all line up at the top of the page. All three are floated, and the main column is floated to the right. If you also define the width of #content and #content-inner, though, that should push the entries back over. *looks* Your sidebars look to be about 180px or so, so try making #content { width: 860px; } and see if that works.