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 recently bought a left-handed keyboard, the DSI one below, and it's much better to use for me as a right-hander - the keyboard is centred with the monitor, mouse/trackball has tons of space on the right, and the left hand has quickly gotten up to speed on the numpad and arrows with way more keys accessible without taking your hand off the mouse . Hell, even Logitech knows to add 12 bonus keys on the left - why not use the right hand cluster which is already there and just shift it to the left? I don't take my hand off the mouse anymore unless I'm typing long missives like this one - anything with AutoCAD, Excel, FE analysis, gaming, all these use-cases keep my mouse hand fixed, keyboard exclusively with the left.
Calling on the keyboard designers to embrace a left hand layout and bring something original to market rather than forever tweaking 60% boards or adding more coloured LEDs. This form works so well I can't believe it's not more prevalent. The DSI is decent (Cherry Reds) but can be improved. Let's go!