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
Not a Desk Candy rep or anything, but felt this GB was a bit under-represented on everything but GeekHack! Cross-post from /r/mk...
Rare ALPS / PBT / DCS goodness inbound on this GB in the modern world of ALPS keycaps. If you were ever interested in ALPS, this would be a good set to scoop up, as this kind of offering doesn't come along often.
For fantastic ALPS boards, LFKeyboards has a great lineup of 68 / 75 / TKL layouts that support holtite ALPS, and non-holtite SMK switches. Can confirm excellent tolerances on a recent SMK65 order, based on the holtite compatibility table:
https://www.lfkeyboards.com/pcbs.html
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K1qt70E2mcuaHBXYrpPHXlpl7FNaXLo0u_TOe67cVdY/pubhtml?gid=1901814151&single=true
Other boards / offerings may support ALPS, just check the product specifications.
Happy clacking :)