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
So really I'm posting this to get this conversation started on Massdrop. Maybe these exist somewhere in the world or you know a guy that knows a guy that could make these happen, let me know in the comments. It would even be awesome to see these as a collaboration with Massdrop and Varmilo, since this site has helped Varmilo gain recognition in the West... I don't know I'm just spit-balling all of this. When it really gets down to it, I just love the feeling of the PBT keycaps but want to take advantage of the front-LED's on this keyboard.
Summary... I know that the market for this isn't really there and it may be expensive to produce, but I think it's an eye-catching style that will gain popularity as time goes on. Even though there may not be many manufactures building their keyboards for this, I don't think that would stop enthusiasts building custom keyboards around this style.
TL;DR Some random pleb bought a mech. keyboard and wants specialty front-lit doubleshot PBT keycaps because Varmilo decided to put the LED's on the front of their switches rather than the back.