OK. I’ve been judging two newish themes on two old blogs — Penscratch 2 on New Wheeled Order and Independent Publisher 2 on Town & Country — and I’m getting close to a verdict.
Not knowing how people “interact” with the blog leaves me thinking I should probably focus on how the wee beastie looks on a phone. I prefer working it on a laptop — and a laptop hooked to an external monitor when I can get it — but I may be the lone exception.
With that in mind, Penscratch 2 looks cleaner. There’s a menu right at the top for easy navigation. In IP2 I seem to be restricted to putting items like search, archives, bio, and whatnot in a widget area, like a sidebar or footer.
Penscratch 2 seems easier to work, too. I spent some time with it yesterday and almost got to feeling comfortable. I just dropped a photo and caption into the top of this post and it went smoove like butta. In the editing window a sidebar at right gave me the option of selecting a resolution, aspect ratio, and a custom width/height.
And really, that’s what I want from a new theme, if I absolutely have to have one, which is coming to feel inevitable. Operating it should be easy, because sometimes writing is not. Also, it should not blow up the blog, which is 15 years old in its present incarnation.
I’ve relocated most of my sidebar widgets as pages, save for the Radio Free Dogpatch item. That I’ll get to tomorrow, or over the weekend. Then I’ll ask a few folks for their opinions and we’ll proceed from there. I’d like to have the new look ready to rock for New Year’s Day.
THE NEW WHEELED ORDER 
Comment. Gee, that seems to work.
Who says there’s no such thing as good news?