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
As for "functions", F2+F1 cycles through the lighting mode for the top LEDs, which has a decent selection of reactive lighting and breathing modes, although since the lights are a permanent gradient, it isn't too fancy. F2+F3 cycles through the lights on the bottom LEDs, which by the way is much brighter than the top LED. This just cycles through a few different colors and there is a seizure mode where it flashes through all the colors without any fading effect and much too quickly for me to consider using.
Additionally, if the F2 isn't held down, F1 also acts like F5, or the refresh page button on a web browser and some other apps, while F3 acts like the backspace button. I like this touch, especially the F3, as it would be handy to have a way to backspace quickly if you typed the wrong number, so that's a real nice surprise. Other than that, it looks like this numpad has a nice standard layout so it should be compatible with most aftermarket keycaps.
EDIT:...upgrade? lol
I got these from a more recent drop, so maybe they added that feature later.