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
Pros: - Amazing build quality. Unit feels very solid. My coworker said you could kill someone with it...I moved desks. - I like the magnetic feet and I like the option to decline the keyboard. This is the first time I've tried it and I could get used to it. - The LEDs seem bright and smooth - Stabs feel good for the most part. The backspace has a very, very slight rattle but nothing like my other keyboards - I really like the box white switches. For me they hit a sweet spot for clicky keys and the sound is better than blues IMO - I actually really like the finish because it seems more metallic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - At first I didn't like the texture of the caps or the caps in general, but they've really grown on me. I'm still in the giddy phase every time I sit down to code.
Cons - Finish: even though I really like the finish I cannot ignore how incredibly different it is from the renders. I can understand a slight difference but this is very different. In the renders, the finish matches the darker key caps, but in reality the finish is lighter than the light keycaps - I don't know if this is normal for shine through but the key cap illumination is not uniform. Several keys (like "C", "S", and "B") all have dark areas at the bottom of the lettering. Not a huge deal at all but something I noticed. I also noticed the keycaps give white LEDs a pinkish hue. - I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose a magnetic foot at some point - The keyboard doesn't remember my last active LED profile. It resets every time. I haven't played with programming this board yet so this doesn't really worry me.
All in all I really like this keyboard and I've had no buyer's remorse yet. It really feels like a premium keyboard. I hope I have the same experience with the ALT. I also hope they match the colors between CTRL and ALT - it would just be absurd if they were slightly different.