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
I'll be writing up a lot of information about this set here in a bit, hold tight!
In the meantime, here is a picture from a print test Signature Plastics did for us last week. Please note that a slight gap will be added between the surfaces on keys where two tracks cross, such as the right key here, to avoid any color bleeding. I will update the renders accordingly in the coming days.
Edit/Update:
Let's check out what the Metropolitan (Base Kit) can do!
First up, the good old 104 key fullsize (below) which can easily be cut down to TKL and 60%
Next, a custom TKL (below), such as the Mech27-TKL. Now, the functions row has a distance of 0.25 units instead of 0.5 units seen on most retail keyboards, so when we move down the functions row, the green track would not be aligned anymore. But simply turn that F5 key upside down, and it will match up again! Also, the bottom row with 1.5u keys and a 7u spacebar is available in the kit
The compact 75% format (below) is covered as well. Simply use the alternate F5 key to continue the green track through the functions row without interruptions.
And similarly, the 96 key layout (below) with arrow keys can be achieved in the same manner, although you will be forced to use the Homing keys as this layout requires 38 blank 1u keys, while the Metropolitan kit offers 36 regular blanks and the 3 homing keys. To achieve this bottom row, we will be using the 1.5u keys and 7u spacebar, but also extend the red track with the extra 1u straight red track key as there is no 1u gap between Ctrl and Alt like the custom TKL above has. The arrowless layout, which is basically a condensed fullsize, can be filled as well.
Moving on to smaller sized layouts, we have the Leopold FC660C and FC660M (below) covered using the additional 2.25u shift key. And since the left Alt key is moved 0.25 units to the left due to the 1u Sys key, we will want to use the alternative red track bend to avoid having a misalignment of it.
Our next stop is the VA68M and Magicforce68 layout (below)
Another 65% layout (below), as featured for example on the recent RAMA-M65, is not left out. Just like the 96 arrow layout, we are using the same approach to cover the bottom row of this keyboard.
This brings us to our final destination, the Whitefox (below). The vanilla layout, also available on the Tada68, is no issue for us either.
And the alternative layouts of the Whitefox, such as the Aria (below) are covered as well. The TrueFox layout is almost identical, your only difference is using two 1u blank keys in place of the Backspace key.
As far as I know, this covers most of the common layouts. There are surely more that are possible with this kit, but also some that are not. I apologize for that, but they were simply outside of the scope of this project.
Huge thanks @livingspeedbump for his detailed write up of all these special layouts, it helped me greatly to ensure a vast variety of layouts are covered with this artwork (https://www.massdrop.com/talk/947/keyboard-layouts-explained-in-detail-many-pics)
I'll probably buy it anyway in a moment of weakness.