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
Right now my main feedback is that the front row could probably do with more tapered keys (although I don't know whether this is something that could be done with commodity parts), and that the firmware (which I'll be upgrading to latest tomorrow) seems to just stop responding after a while of inactivity. Other than that I'm pretty happy as whilst the top plate is jagged in places, this doesn't seem to affect the end product in my case, and whilst the anodised aluminium isn't quite the texture and finish I was expecting, the colour and heft is still pretty satisfying. Maybe the instructions and default layout (especially the keycap profiles for each row) could be a little easier to find?