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
Nice keyboard by the way. I haven't found time to play with it until now. I really enjoy the features of the QMK firmware, especially : - the ability to have a key (on the thumb cluster for example) act as a modifier (ctrl, shift, alt, mod4, or layer change) when held down and a regular key (e.g. space, tab, enter) when pressednkey rollover (steno) - full control over the lcd screen - nkey rollover (useful for steno) - mouse control (i never thought I would need it until I had it)
The actual layout is specified in `keymap.c`. The settings for the visualizer are in `visualizer.c`.
I might not be of valuable help if you are a Windows user. The instructions are here https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/tree/master/keyboards/ergodox After you `git clone` you will need to initialize and update some submodules. Once you have decided on a layout (start with default first), you need to compile it.
In the `keyboards/ergodox` directory:
make infinity-nameofyourlayout
For instance `make infinity-default`
Plug-in the left half in flash mode and then, as root (or use `sudo`):
make infinity-nameofyourlayout-dfu-util
Repeat the process for the right half:
make infinity-nameofyourlayout MASTER=right make infinity-nameofyourlayout-dfu-util MASTER=right
If you want to activate support for nkey-rollover, append NKRO_ENABLE=yes when you `make`. You will then be able to toggle it with leftshit+rightshift+N.
The documentation exposes the different features and the syntax to help you design your layout. https://docs.qmk.fm/
Don't hesitate to ask if you need me to detail a step.