Support for Alternative Layouts
This is a summary of how alternative layouts have been supported by kits such as Colevrak and Homing. It is not a discussion of alt layout performance and development, but if that interests you I highly recommend starting with Pascal Getreuer’s A guide to alt keyboard layouts (why, how, which one?). It’s a concise and comprehensive overview with links to some great sites that go deeper. He also has a separate Links about keyboards page. The Keyboard layouts doc he recommends explains layout goals and metrics in detail, summarizing the alt layouts discussed here as well as more than one hundred others. Sculpted-profile The majority of custom keycap sets are sculpted-profile (Cherry, SA, MT3, KAT, etc. - more on profiles generally here) so let’s start there. Because each row has a unique keycap shape, alt layouts require a unique keycap for each legend that moves off its QWERTY row. At first there were two The Dvorak layout was patented in 1936 by August Dvorak & William L....
Apr 23, 2024
They improved my typing speed on the first try. When I used membrame keyboards, I could get 110+ WPM on a good day (with like 10-15 wrong words though). When I switched to mech keyboards, I got like 100< WPM on my hardest tries.
After putting these on and trying them out, I got 115 WPM on my first try (and only 1 wrong word!). This was pretty much the reason I wanted to buy these rings; to type faster and reduce finger fatigue. I love my clears; but using it for work and typing on it 8 hours a day is pretty tiring. My finger fatigue still persists (I bottom out my clears on every keystroke), but I havent used these for two full days yet; so I'll have to be patient and adjust my fingers not to squish the rings.
Overall, I'm pretty happy. I got 120 rings, which of 1 was badly degraded (looks like something took a bite from the inside of it). Not that I care, considering I use a POK3R as my only mechanical keyboard, but yeah. The other rings were of good quality though. I even tried stretching the degraded one out as far as I could, but it wouldn't snap.
The only part that I'm dissapointed about is the squishiness of the rings. I figured they'd be pretty hard to squish (vertically). When typing, I kinda feel them squishing (like VERY little, its barely anything). Maybe because it's I'm ramming so damn hard. Maybe I still need to adjust, I don't know.
Also payed 15 euros for everything in total (shipping, o-rings), which is kinda too much in my opinion. Like people mentioned before, you can get likewise o-rings from ebay and stuff for way cheaper. Not sure how legitimate the quality of those are though. The quality control on these isn't bad at all.