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
First, the bad: The USB port at the rear bent inwards when I first tried to plug in the supplied USB cord, threatening to break off (and forcing me to open it up and repair it.) Instead, I switched USB cords to another one I already owned that inserted more easily, and now it's stable on my desk. If I moved my keyboard around a lot this would be a significant problem, and I'd probably open it up and repair it.
Otherwise, it's quite nice. I like the distinct roughness of these keycaps, which I'm assuming is a property of the PBT. The aluminum housing is, as everyone says, ridiculously heavy and solid. I'm running Cherry Blues, and this is lot more dead sounding than the Ducky Zero I run at work, which I also quite like for the record. I also hate the gamer-y fonts found on most LED mechanical keyboards, but this font is just fine by me - a slightly bit techie but not absurd like most of them.
Lighting is nice but I keep it on a single color and don't play with effects. I find the manual confusing but that's not a deal breaker.
I hope they pay more attention to the USB port in future revisions, but for $150 I'm happy.