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 expect that 26 keys (for the letters in English alphabet) are all needful; using chording to get there would be possible, but probably not wise. You need to have some keys usable to "switch layers" (in Planck/qmk terminology), as well, likely, as commonly used modifiers (e.g. - Shift, Alt, Ctrl). At least 5 keys for that, bringing us to 31. I don't imagine we get away without a Space bar, or without an Enter. That makes for 33. To type text, you need reasonable access to some punctuation. I'd think 2 punctuation keys, for dot and comma, are about enough. That eats up 35 keys.
With all that, there are 2 keys left to quibble over, perhaps Esc, perhaps an extra modifier/layer key. With 2 keys to quibble over, it's not ridiculous to think it can be usable. But it's pretty "at the bare edge."
I'll stay with my Planck with 48 keys :-)
Glad to hear the Planck is working for you. That's my plan B if the MiniVan doesn't work out.