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
In my custom Preonic and XD64 layouts these keys are next to each other and it becomes slightly noticeable. Is this intentional or just a case of long term reuse of the molds? It seems like the forward slash is slightly out of character with the rest of the legends’ width, for what it’s worth. Also the renders show a different look, one where the forward slash is just a mirror of the backslash.
As it is, it has a bit of old-fashioned charm to it I guess. But more of a 60’s typewriter charm than 80’s Anime feel of Legacy. Anyway my $0.02