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 have a Pok3r with Cherry clears at work, and it's pretty close to what I'm looking for in a keyboard. Still pretty quiet, decently stiff (I'm a heavy typer), and good tactile bump. I think I personally want something between brown and clear but closer to clear.
I have the CM switch tester and didn't really like the clicky sound of the blues, and felt like it was still too soft a switch for my heavy hands. The green, on the other hand, sounded and felt pretty good. Since I'm mostly going to use the Planck for typing heavy tasks, and I'm a pretty big fan of my MX clears (similar weight to MX green), I ended up getting MX Greens for the Planck. Always fun to have a clicky keyboard around for annoying housemates and/or coworkers ;).
Lastly, because of my preference for the tactile (quiet) switches in general, I recently purchased a bunch of 67g (and a handful of 78g) Zealios to try. These are supposed to be the holy grail of tactile, so...if I love them, I might swap them with the greens in my Planck :).
Obviously my experiences/likes probably won't mirror yours, but hopefully the path I've taken helps you with your decisions!
I am torn between the Zealios and the cherrys now. I see so many posts...I use this at school but the noise isnt THAT big a deal. Just want something that wont get too tiresome, blue was good for this. Haven't had a chance to really try clears yet so im pretty stuck :(
My issue with the brown is that they're just too light for me, and the tactile bump is definitely not very pronounced (although still more present than linear switches :P).
Cherry MX switches tend to fall into three categories. Linear (quiet, no bump/feedback feeling at actuation point), Tactile (quiet, but has a feedback bump at actuation point), and Clicky (tactile, with a different piece that makes a click sound when you cross the actuation point). The Blue is Clicky and the Brown is Tactile, at close to the same "weight" to actuate. The MX Clear is tactile, so it is closer to a Brown than a Blue, but it has a stronger spring inside, so it requires more force to actuate. So, typically, if you think your Brown switch is too easy to press, but you like that there's a bump feeling that indicates when you have pressed the switch, then the Clears are usually a good place to go. The biggest complaint I read about for MX Clear is that the bottom-out force (force required to push the key all the way down so that it cant go any further down) is quite high, which can cause fatigue when typing for a long time. I think I have a heavy hand for typing, so this doesn't bother me :).
MX Clear is more like a tactile (non-clicky) MX Green, than MX Blue. MX Green is a higher-force MX Blue.
I personally prefer MX Clear, but I also ordered my first MX Clear keyboard blind, after only trying Brown and Blue keyboards. The best way to figure out your own preferences is to try typing on a keyboard yourself. Ideally if you can try a friend's keyboard, then you don't have to shell out money for something you might hate, but I bit the bullet and got lucky :D
Hope this helps!
So I guess I'm in the same situation as you! I started with Blues, now Brown and buying Clears blindly. I don't mind the lightness of the Browns but I want a bigger tactile bump. I don't think I'll be bottoming out that often as I don't do so with my Browns at the moment. I'll stick with my Clear option I think after your comment!
Thanks again for your heads up. I noticed it already by "pretend typing" on the sketch. Non staggered will take some getting used to! Can't wait to get this though!
EDIT: description indicates the non universal plate, I wish that was an option