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
Also, I can't believe you accommodate all these funky keyboards, and not Corsair. /sulk
Edit: and the thing with Corsair is their weird spacebar. Signature Plastics literally doesn't have a mold for a spacebar that size.
As I think about it, if Corsair/Razer/Logitech were smart (not sure if anyone else has that space bar), they'd give SP money to offset that investment. They could get some free advertising out of it if they do some fancy announcement. Nice PR.
It would also likely improve sales, because I know of people that won't buy the keyboards solely because of their non-standard bottom row.
I especially can't see upgrading regular keyboards that are totally fine for what they are (non-ergonomic) when my Keyboard.io Model 01 is finally getting close to production. Since it uses proprietary keycaps, I'll be using the Corsair as one of my "keycap boards" for some time to come!
Unfortunately your Corsair won't be much for keycaps either way, as there aren't any solutions for it's unique length spacebar.
I hate to burst that bubble of omniscience you're rocking, but a lot of people who buy these keyboards actually USE them. LIKE them. Even LOVE them. They will never solder their own PCB, or buy a custom Korean board, or decide they can't live without a keyboard with at least 3 programmable layers. And they're HAPPY!
I already KNOW there's a dearth of spacebar options for my Corsair keyboard - I knew it when I bought it, and I bought it anyway. Tai Hao and Max Keyboard already know and benefit from the fact that many "heathen" people with non-standard, mainstream mechanical keyboards WANT to spend money on better/cooler keycaps. Further, people will actually choose NOT to buy keycap sets that won't accommodate their Corsair/Logitech/Razer keyboard's spacebar. Particularly when the set costs more than their actual keyboard. At this point, SP doesn't care (or market research says demand isn't there to make it profitable), but that hopefully will change.
SP will also never care. They are a much larger manufacturer of molded plastic goods that merely keeps their keycap presses running because they know they can always throw them on PMK to get rid of any spare inventory.