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
The only downside that I can see at the moment is the lack of replacement keycaps. A board this good ought to be fitted with some attractive dye-sub PBT keycaps, preferably in OEM or a similar profile (but not DSA). Until these become available, I will be looking for vintage Alps boards to harvest some good keycaps. Now I am curious about the Matias Tactile Click switch, which some say feels even better than the Matias Quiet Click switch, although it is said to be very loud.
You also mentioned the HHKB, how do the switches compare to that? I have heard some people compare them to topre, or a really nice rubber dome.