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
The novelties are also currently twice as popular as your hiragana Nishi set, so....
Perhaps you have a point. Massdrop is after all for the "masses". This might not be the best place for the enthusiast MechKeys scene to live... there are a lot of very serious collectors on here, mixed in with a lot of folks that just want a "nice" mechanical keyboard at a decent price. I've been observing this community's comments for a while, and most of the clashes regarding what a base set should be, come down to very small details, but IMO, details that are important to refine the scene standards.
It's a double edged sword really... the point is to get as many people to join so the price goes down... but this means the offerings might not "speak" to the smaller subset of discerning collectors.... yet somehow they all agree on classics like Choclatier, Nautilus, and the like.
There's a lot to be said for popularity. In footwear, Crocs are super popular.
I'm personally waiting for someone to step up and create another channel to GMK, SP or any of the other mfrs. Problem there is volume. The die hard enthusiasts won't be able to match the numbers of MD for reasonable prices, and will have to hope for like-minded designers to offer up something really worthy.
Now that the pure Hiragana mold exists, hopefully there will be another set that takes advantage of it.
Thanks to @Moeeed for keeping the peace.
Edit: For the overly sensitive - Not trying to single out Crocs users.. I only meant to distinguish between those and something like a Balenciaga.. I'm sure Crocs are more popular.. but for collectors and enthusiasts... ugh... nevermind. cue Crocs user uprising. (oh well)
New keycap profiles on the other hand are emerging. HuB and mgsickler's project could bring some nice alternatives to the Big 2, at attractive price points. SP's own DSS could be interesting too.
Patience. 🐱👓🐱👤🐱💻