View and select old LJ site schemes (e.g. Dystopia, XColibur, Vertigo)

[estelle]

Update: This does not work if you switched over to the new design by clicking on "Switch to the up-to-date version" in the top right of the screen. Please contact LJ support and ask them to switch you back to the old design first.
LiveJournal nostalgia recently made me yearn for the old site schemes so I went to investigate

Comments

[glowing_dragon]

That's my secret - I've always been on Dystopia.

[scolaro]

I actually sent a support request only yesterday about this because I accidentally switched from Xcolibur and couldn't get back. As you said, the initial link that worked in the past for this (https://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/?cat=display) doesn't work anymore.

However, for me https://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/?cat=display&usescheme=xcolibur doesn't work either. There is no option to choose it and when I just press "Save" at this URL nothing changes for me either - I tried both Firefox and Edge. (Basically after accidentally switching before I now see the LJ navigation bar on my journal page, and it doesn't disappear anymore.)

[estelle]

You switched from XColibur to what? Did you switch via settings/cat=display

[scolaro]

I saw a button on the new entry page to try out a newer version (which I thought was only meant for the new entry page) and after choosing that button the site design looked new, the old LJ menu strip disappeared and the huge blue navigation strip appeared on my journal.
I thought it was the horizon scheme, but frankly, at the moment I can't even figure out how to see which site scheme it is. The info is also no longer displayed when you send support tickets, it seems.

(By the way, I should have said thank you for your post right away - hardly anyone seems to care about the old site schemes anymore!)

[estelle]

Ohhh! Oh no!

I still have that blue bar that says "Switch to the up-to-date version". I live in fear of slipping and clicking on it accidentally. The track record for these sort of links on LJ that don't clearly say what they do is.... not great.

Interestingly, I do not see a blue navigation strip on your journal when logged in. Only a bit of grey space above the picture.

[cordykitten]

Thank you for your post. I managed to avoid clicking that button so far (and now as scolaro said managed to block it for now without clicking the button to change). I'm not sure what site scheme to use anyway. I'll try to keep mine as long a I can. (xcolibur). For now it works good enough. 😁 *fingers crossed*

[ablemagawitch]

Thanks OP, I've been hiding out never upgrading style, after being burned few times and how hard they made it to switch back. I won't ever click an option to check out a new style option because going back to my old original one is made extremely difficult to impossible. and fear the day the go full Facebook and make you upgrade.