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
PS. I would also suggest a colour & novelties sub-kits; for those who want to inject awesome into their boards ;-) They always seem to sell well and I think you'll have a real winner here.
PPS. If you are going with double shots over dye-sub, I suggest of taking the advantage of being able to go with light lettering over dark background.
PPPS. (last one, promise) Matt3o open sourced his high-pro profile, signature plastics has the molds for it already - if you want a REAL feeding frenzy, organise an Alps Hi-Pro drop.
Big ass enter key and various size space bars as a part of this set would make this IC (hopefully becomes a groupbuy) pretty unique for rejuvenating old Alps keyboards. I would love to see the Alps HI-Pro format but pretty sure that would only work for V60 or V80 (and possibly Dell AT101) but not the older classic Alps boards due to odd enter key/spacebar etc unless Signature Plastic has molds for these.
PS. I'd suggest the ever popular "night kit," (basically just the alphas, f5-8 and light coloured numpad keys) in the dark grey colour way of your mods, or if you really want to push out the boat, white/black on red of the colour kit. It would go down a treat with members looking for a more aggressive look, plus, appeal to people who picked up a beige vintage set already and are looking for something bit more unique for their board.