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
Pok3r, Box Navies, Tai-Hao Purple PBT, Random legends on top row because I was looking for the uniform black top row. Doesn't matter much as I'm getting /dev/tty in August :). Oh yeah, black coffee.
Desoldered the old brown switches with a solder pump because I didn't want to wait for my solder wick to come in, 3 hours later the keeb was ready for use.
Edit: Update for those who maybe interested in Navies. They're great! I love the weight and the sound they make. Such a satisfying level of feedback these switches create on a keystroke.