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
It started with [of all things] a Nexus 7. Nice enough machine, but Android LCD touchscreens don't make the best experience. The "mini" keyboards require their own battery - which seems just silly. Throw in a few recent articles about custom builds [Ben Heck: Raspberry Pi Zero Personal Computer; Hackaday: "RasPSION"] and it's time to look at a custom built machine, with it's own keyboard.
At this stage, in my efforts to keep the design "low profile" the choices seem to be: Cherry ML, or surface mounted tactile switches. Also trying to keep overall width under 200mm [8 inches], by reducing key spacing from 19mm to 15mm - meaning standard keycaps are out of the question.