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
The Topre 87U is unquestionably my favorite TKL of all time. Unfortunately with Topre, keycap options are quite limited. I am also a huge fan of high profile caps, such as SA profile caps, and luckily Topre actually makes a full size keyboard called the HiPro that features high profile dye-subbed PBT keycaps. So, if you have the money to buy both, you can simply swap out the caps, right?Unfortunately, no. Because the HiPro only comes in a full size variant, like all full size Topre boards, the status indicator lights (Caps, Scroll, Num) are above the numpad. The 87U, due to not having room at the top of the case for these lights, uses under switch LEDs. Due to the position of these LED’s the bottom left CTRL key features a special slider, and slider housing, to accommodate for the indicator LED (on the 87U Caps and CTRL can be swapped via a DIP switch, and in that case there is a Caps LED where CTRL normally is). Because of that, only keys made for the 87U, and that left hand slot can be used in that location. Here a visual example of the difference:
Now that my slider was in alignment with all of the others I simply needed to desolder the LED from the PCB. With the housing turned, the LED hit the bottom of the housing. This was a very easy process, and the LED came out without any issues.
Also, the sexy triple shot ESC key is from KeyKollectiv!