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
While there are many keyboard components to look into to find the perfect fit for you, I will be personally biased in saying that I think the switches are most important. For some takes on the other bits and pieces of mechanical keyboards out there, you should check out some of the articles that the other awesome writers at Drop have put out about them here. As to why I think that switches are the first component to consider in any mechanical keyboard build, here are top three reasons laid out:
As you may have guessed by the fact that we stock so many switches, each one can produce different feelings and sounds with each press of a key. While I cover some of the marketing terms and switch slang in this article that helps you understand what separates one switch from another (Coming Soon!), you’ll have to trust me for now that the options are near endless. Switch weights ranging from 30g to over 100g in force, with three different types, and hundreds of different color schemes all make for an incredible set of options for your perfect keyboard. Did I even mention that you can further customize your switches on your own after you buy them?
With that brief introduction as to why switches are such an important decision for you to make when picking your first or even fifteenth keyboard, I hope I was able to convince you to look a bit further into the details that sets switches like Holy Pandas and Gateron Yellows apart! My personal recommendation for next steps would be to look into the three main types of switches , though I won’t stop you if you want to jump right into trying some out for yourself. Before you do that, though, you may want to check out different marketing terms which you’ll often see with switches. Mod Edit: Fixed some formatting