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
And yes, if you want to switch to a more Mac friendly layout, you can use DIP6 to switch Win and Alt. I have a Pok3r and did so programmatically on their second layer. I will say that having an actual DIP dedicated to that is cool. Then all you have to do is find some Mac specific R4 keys. Really, most boards you can use on a Mac, but you will either have to add some additional programming steps or lose the functionality of some of the keys.
Edit: I do want to point out that with the addition of the new cable routing on this, a standard 60% case will not fit board... so if you wanted to swap out cases for any reason, you wont be able unless you get someone to custom make you one or that location becomes a standard (highly doubtful). More than likely what "could" happen, would be another MD for some new case options that only iKBC would have made.
Thank you for the advice :)
For extremely programmable boards and really fancy options that a single key can do, check out QMK's software with these cool features:
Adding Macros - https://goo.gl/lL8INT Space Cadet - https://goo.gl/4KkRyl Tap Dance - https://goo.gl/ISw6wT
As far as having to program your board for use on a Mac, with DIP6 you should be fine until you get more comfortable with keyboard programming and customizing your layout. Once you get some knowledge under your belt, you should have no issues swapping keys around quickly. I have a Mac and a Pok3r (without the DIP6 option), so I had to take 5min to swap those keys myself inside the keyboards programming. Quick and easy.