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 mean, my assumption is "because they can", but as I said: I'm not trying to be too much of a dick :3 haha
Perhaps the cost could be less, but what would you charge if you spent a lot to develop this product and bring it to the marketplace? Sometimes we just have to try to understand those who make things for us.
I'm considering this product because I already use a gamepad to play my favorite game, where I've programmed many keys in close proximity to each other for quick access. The keypad would be handy for quick access to numbers I need to reach that I can't program into my gamepad as a combo to make certain call outs to other players. My keyboard just takes up way too much space, as I need that for my gamepad and for wide mouse movements, so it gets tucked away under my monitor stand. A keypad could be handy for me for quick access to numbers without having a big keyboard out interfering with my mouse movements.