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'm here in the Philippines and I just got into mechanical keyboards late last year. I have a Ducky Shine 3 with Cherry MX Browns and white PBT keycaps as well as a CM Storm Quickfire Rapid-i with Cherry MX Blues, and I wanted to get into Topre switches. I decided that the Realforce 87U with 55g switches was the one, since I didn't like the 60% HHKB lay-out.
My best friend just transferred to New York last year. He's coming home to the Philippines on the 26th of August, so if I had ordered and made it to the first batch, the estimated shipping date of August 14 would have been perfect for him to bring it home with him. He's bringing my Ducky 108 PBT keycap set in green/cream from Massdrop so that's a consolation prize, I guess.
I still decided to pull the trigger and take the drop. Shipping straight to the Philippines wasn't as expensive as I thought it'd be. It comes up to a total of $215.00 for the keyboard and $10.35 for shipping, so $225.35 total. Which is more than reasonable. The only reservations that I have is that my country has shitty and questionable customs tax practices. I've heard horror stories of people paying up to 300% of what the product was worth ($90 tax for a $30 item) because that was what the customs officer declared.
Had I made it to the first batch, I would have had my keyboard shipped to my best friend in NY and he would have brought it home with 0% chance of getting taxed.
So I'm taking a major risk here by having it shipped straight to my house. Fingers crossed they don't charge me a ludicrous amount for it.