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 have personally switched to Kaihua Speed Silvers in a couple of recent builds, and again in my opinion I think they are in a different class when compared to MX Reds. Super fast response and an almost friction-less key press feel which I have not found is as consistent in boards I have owned with MX Reds in.
I also took the slightly unnecessary step to lube them which made them insanely smooth, but even without this I thought they were far better feeling then Reds out of the box.
If you are looking to get this board for gaming first I think from the list of options the Kaihua Speed Silvers are the obvious choice. However I would say if you want to type a lot on the board, you may want to consider a more tactile or even clicky switch, as speed silvers are insanely easy to actuate, and it is easy to make mistakes/have other key strokes register when typing fast. Although that might just be me and my clumsy hands haha!
And hey with the hotswap nature of the board, if you don't like them swap them out for MX Reds later!
After some responses and a great deal (almost a full hour!) of research, I settled on the Speed Silvers. They seem to be, of the options available, the most similar to the reds.
Here's hoping I chose wisely.