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
I'm happy with this set in that they are much easier to read versus the factory white on black backlit keys that came on my non-backlit Ducky One (/w cherry browns). WTF was Ducky thinking? Also I partially blame MechanicalKeyboards for their poor description of my board. I would've just sent the board back but then I would've been out around $40 and not have anything to show for it, due to their return policy. This is my first aftermarket mechanical keyboard and it turns out my extensive research wasn't enough, though I'm thrilled with the switches.
Anyway, I love the orange on black keys, and I wanted the full set like that, but it seems the only way to get it, is order a custom set which would be pad printed ABS, and it wouldn't be a 108 piece set. I'm not paying $50+ for that when I can get doubleshot PBT for the same or less money. It seems my eyes are slowly getting worse, so I like a high contrast keycap set. Ducky has an orange legends One, but they don't sell the keycap set by itself, and no one in America currently has the orange legends Ducky One kb.
My set arrived complete & flawless and the caps are every bit identical to the factory caps. Some of the bottom edges looked a little rough, but once installed, you can't see that, so I didn't bother taking a file to them. I was expecting them to arrive loose in a box, but was surprised to see they were in a thin plastic shell, neatly laid out in proper order. That made changing out the caps very easy.
EDIT: I just found more pictures of the JTK orange on black set, with all the black keys. Damn that's beautiful! Since it's doubleshot, I can live with not having large font and centered legends. I've bookmarked it on zFrontier. Hopefully I can get it next Christmas if not sooner. Thanks again, Jdot.