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
If anyone's interested in the keycaps, they are almost certainly Cherry clones made by PLUM (like on their other keyboards), with font copied from Topre Realforce. PLUM keycaps could be available separately somewhere in China, I'm not sure. You can harvest thick Cherry-profile PBT keycaps from older Cherry G80/G81 keyboards though, only beware of stem placement. edit: Also, don't forget about group buys with keycap sets made by companies with original Cherry Corp. tooling (GMK).
About the "Topre experience",. The feel of such capacitive switches is completely determined by the rubber dome, sliders/mounting and keycaps. These variable aren't constant across different Topre keyboards (Realforce, HHKB, Novatouch, FC660M, Type Heaven, microTron, vintage Topre keyboards) and this Noppoo isn't even Topre. If you're familiar with some high-quality vintage rubber domes, they varied a lot (just like there are quite big differences among different "mechanical" switches). I'm not aware of any up-to-date reviews in English (or any other European language), only impressions of engineering samples that stated the keyboard felt cheap at that stage (and the expected price was about $65 back then!).
I'm interested in detailed comparison with actual Topre keyboards and more importantly, whether it's possible to put these stems in Topre keyboards (listed above), although there would be still a problem with modifiers.