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
These look really inconsistent and mismatched? e.g. why put "Return" on the red Ares? it doesn't match the base modifier option? Same thing will happen for anyone who wants Apollo legends in the 'wrong' color.
There's nothing to match the icon modifiers either.
Possible workarounds:
i) add one ISO key in each base modifier pack with the respective legend. ii) use the "Godspeed" legend only on every ISO key color. iii) include "Godspeed" and "Return" on each color. iv) put a Novelty design on each color, maybe an existing design, or perhaps something different? From Apollo 11:
Escape and Enter/Return are the most frequently used points to place novelties, so Godspeed is more tolerable on a plain text board, and the ISO key would never be mistaken for anything else.
Ideally it would possible to have each text on each color, but if that's not allowed for whatever reason, then the matching Apollo should take priority, that's the one that fits the theme of the set.
I like the colors and theme but I'm sorry, on this point I think you are wrong. Your Return vs Enter argument is pretty tenuous, clutching at straws to justify the decision. "Return" may be better than "Enter" here, but it is still a limitation that will deter people from particular modifier combinations.
XDA Godspeed has severely limited the alphas and the modifiers for ISO, less than 1/3 of the options vs ANSI. It may not be deliberate, but you can't keep treating ISO customers as an afterthought and expect them to be happy about it, then dismiss the lack of demand as the whole problem. People will always be hostile to being offered an inferior version of any product, especially when they have to pay more (an issue amplified further by the swingeing import fees in many countries.)
Fair products, with fair pricing from the buyers perspective, is the only way to see demand grow. Compare your sets and other recent ones to /dev/tty and Nautilus, predictably those with low ISO language price + good ISO language support do much better.
N.B. I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I use ANSI and ISO, so I could just say nothing and not care, but I really want to see custom keysets get closer to mainstream, covering more languages and options so that ultimately all of us can benefit from lower prices, higher quality and more choice.
But just to give you perspective, Canvas XDA sold almost 7,000 kits.
85 were ISO.
Now imagine if I offered multiple options, legends, colors and icons. Divide 85 by 4 and you'll see that pretty much nobody need these kits, in the grand scheme of things.
Either that or it would sell like 150 unities, maybe a little more, at best - which I doubt, given what I learned and seen in my experience.
Your Norde+UK Canvas kits match only the 'Alpha' alpha sets right? so nobody purchased these for 'Beta' or anything else. These languages actually accounted for 8% of your 'Alpha' set sales. From a US store with relatively poor visibility in Europe!
Remember: a language kit sale is not just a language kit sale. It represents a base kit + modifier kit + novelty kit + some Tsangen + some spacebars + whatever else was attached...
Add up all those, and maybe it looks more like a whole lot more $.
You won't suddenly get 30% of sales next time going to ISO and other languages, but offer an improved product, and let MD grow their overseas userbase, then you might see 10%-12%. Then maybe a bit further into the future, with a more refined package and a slightly increased awareness you can hit 15%.
I will STFU about this now, but there is a whole lot more untapped European and ISO market waiting to be tapped.
I'll think about what you said and take some things into consideration, perhaps we can do a experiment or two here. The more we expand the group buy, the more things get complex so I gotta see what's viable and what's not.
I think one thing /dev/tty got more right than others was to treat the UK and International kits almost as loss leaders - if you break even, or lose $2-$3 on those kits, the profit from everything else that comes with them should justify the cost.
I'd love to know what % of Nautilus went to the UK (we can't see because it was integrated in the base kit) but the improved Norde+DE kit beat other sets Norde+UK+DE. It's possible Nautilus did sell more than 10% overall to ISO countries, and would've done more if the Norde kit had been perfected to include the Scandinavian key. Hindsight is 20/20...
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As for my comment initially that opened this thread of conversation: doing something else with ISO enter keys. Seven are needed to cover all permutations?
blue return blue godspeed + red return red godspeed red icon + white godspeed yellow godspeed
I already suggested putting them in their respective modifier set. Other ideas: maybe pushing the limits, but is a $7 pack possible with each variation?
Or offer two packs? split three in pack a and four in pack b. Or go a step further and add the dark red color from the GodX pack and split into two packs of four each?
blue return red return white godspeed yellow godspeed & blue godspeed red godspeed red icon dark (GodX) red?