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
Using some blank pink and blue keys from the 3 ErgoBlank kits would reduce this cost. Only 2 Novelties kits would be needed, bringing the cost down to between $111 and $133.
One ErgoBlank kit has 16 blank board squares, so if you used at least 26 letters you could cut out another ErgoBlanks kit. Of course, no need to exactly duplicate the layout of a portion of the Scrabble board. And fewer keycaps are needed on Preonics and Plancks.
Actually, I was worried that "Dvorak" wasn't allowed by the rules (no words that are always capitalized). But since 2010, names are allowed - if the players are OK with it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8604625.stm
I know it doesn't fit into Scrabble but if it's possible to add the two keycaps without a a significant price increase, I would appreciate it :)
Not a dealbreaker for me. I still plan on picking up the Scrabble bag and this blank set you're hinting at.