The paid account thing may not be the problem. See, most journals at this point are on the old style system, and Component is only available on the new one. You're going to want to go to http://www.livejournal.com/customize and change it (in the first drop-down menu) to New System (S2). Click on Change, and from there click on Edit Customizations... to set your colors and such. By the way, just as a tip, I've found while fiddling with Component that it can be a little touchy, and some wrong moves my find you inadvertently at the default layout after you've gone to all the trouble of making it exactly how you want it. To make this more stable, go to http://www.livejournal.com/customize/advanced and click on Your Layers. Under Create layout-specific layer, in the first drop-down (Type) choose "Theme", in the second drop-down (Layout) choose "Component", then click on Create. You need to choose to edit this theme (you can do this from the same page where you created the theme, though it may take you directly there after you create it; I don't remember), and, in the big empty box type
...except hotfudge is the name of my theme, and you can give it whatever name makes you happy. Then click on Compile, and from then on, on the regular Customize screen, you can choose "hotfudge" under Theme in the last drop-down box and any customizations you do will be saved.
FYI, there are a lot of other things you can do in Advanced Customization, like add extra components and such (see my journal), which I'm much less knowledgeable about and is frankly sorta pissing me off. But, if you can figure that stuff out and want to fiddle with it, that's where you go.
I believe you can do everything I've mentioned without purchasing a paid account.
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Date: 2003-08-24 07:31 pm (UTC)layerinfo "type" = "theme";
layerinfo "name" = "hotfudge";
...except hotfudge is the name of my theme, and you can give it whatever name makes you happy. Then click on Compile, and from then on, on the regular Customize screen, you can choose "hotfudge" under Theme in the last drop-down box and any customizations you do will be saved.
FYI, there are a lot of other things you can do in Advanced Customization, like add extra components and such (see my journal), which I'm much less knowledgeable about and is frankly sorta pissing me off. But, if you can figure that stuff out and want to fiddle with it, that's where you go.
I believe you can do everything I've mentioned without purchasing a paid account.