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 do a mix of writing text, coding, and gaming. I like a noticeable tactility, but low force; typing on my old rubber-dome boards is just torture anymore, and even the Alps scissors in my Thinkpad T60p feel like excessive work to me these days.
I'm looking at this as I've never had the opportunity to really try out Topre-style switches before (and real Topre is way too spendy for that kind of experimentation for me). One of the things I'm looking for an improvement in (besides lower force) is faster repeated keypresses... from a shorter travel and/or an actuation point that's easier to flutter around (the actuation being just below the tactile point in the blues makes this just awkward for me, I basically have to do a full stroke).
So... anyone think I'm likely to be particularly happy or unhappy with this board?