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
Unfortunately, I am having some problems with other keycaps fitting the Left Shift key on the Click version -- this is quite odd, and I think the switch might not be properly attached to the plate. In addition, with O-rings installed on the Click version, I get chattering of some keys. I will probably remove the O-rings. Note that to install O-rings on Matias/Alps switches, you need to put the ring around the switch stem rather than the keycap stem; it is a bit tricky to do this.
Will just have to be extra cautious about muting myself when on conference calls. Or maybe force myself to use my laptop keyboard during meetings.