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
Box 2:
- DROP + MARVEL IRON MAN KEYCAP SET - MDX-35945-1 - $130 [Link]
- DROP SKYLIGHT SERIES KEYCAP SET (Slate) - Two Tone Shine Through (Gray) - MDX-34629-3 - $45 [Link]
- ARTIFACT BLOOM SERIES KEYCAP SET: VINTAGE - MDX-34610-9 - $45 [Link]
- DWARF FACTORY TERRARIUM RESIN ARTISAN KEYCAP (Everspring Lotus) - MDX-34767-7 - $45 [Link]
Both of my 0blivion V2 Sets was damaged, either from the factory or due to the way that it's packaged. It also took forever to even find out which set it was, as it simply came in a Ziploc baggie with no marks other than the Massdrop internal designation. (That seemingly isn't published anywhere.) Same deal with the "Two Tone Shine Through" sets and the "Vintage" set, as they have no additional information. I found out what all of these sets were by punching the MDX-### into Google, which led to outdated eBay listings that had barely enough information. Not the best experience. Hopefully including the full name and MDX number will help some folks in the future. So YMMV, but regrettably, I'll probably purchase the next box that is in stock. It is fun to see what you get, but honestly some of these aren't even worth giving away or feel like duplicates. It sucks to see that some arrived damaged, (especially since it was the "big item" for that box) and it was a slight hassle to find out what I even had. In fact, I didn't fully know until I put it all together for this review. Overall though, we all know that MSRP is a load of baloney and that most people wouldn't be buying any of this at MSRP anyway. That's why we're buying mystery boxes. Value is subjective, but I personally feel like I overpaid for *one* set that I'm going to use, that is now discounted. I've bought $15 keycaps off of Amazon with better QC than those supposed $110 sets. If I had paid for them outright, I'd be much more disappointed. I use only full size keyboards too, so I just realized that I'm looking at an additional $30-$50 to be able to actually utilize the Oblivion set.