[IC] SA Colevrak(+)

[jiezhou]

The Colevrak(+) is the niche of this niche customized keyset business. Usually it struggles to MOQ so most keyset GBs would exclude it. Because of that, the Colevrak(+) users have very limited choices on customized keysets. Recently we talked about running it for some GMK sets in this thread. Since it has more praticable MOQ and price for SP SA, I would like to gather some interest to check whether it's workable to run some SA Colevrak(+) kits.

The name "Colevrak+" is from dvorcol's summary. Colevrak+ adds more keys to cover more extended layouts than Colevrak.

I made a form for the IC. It lists a few SA keysets which are on sale or about to run. Please fill the form if you're interested. Any other candidate or idea is appreciated.

Form

[CodeMayhem]

would be down but I don't use any sa sets. the only one that appeals is yuri but i don't have the money for it rn. we do need to have a form for some gmk sets too though. I was also thinking about making a discord channel for us to organize efforts of getting colevrak+ plus kits for future sets. seems like a lot of designers feel its not worth trying to run a colevrak kit bc they've seen how they do in the past but the colevrak+ kits (granted the sample size is small) have done quite well.

[Zilleon]

would be down but I don't use any sa sets. the only one that appeals is yuri but i don't have the money for it rn. we do need to have a form for some gmk sets too though. I was also thinking about making a discord channel for us to organize efforts of getting colevrak+ plus kits for future sets. seems like a lot of designers feel its not worth trying to run a colevrak kit bc they've seen how they do in the past but the colevrak+ kits (granted the sample size is small) have done quite well.

I also try to avoid SA, but I do buy it every time there is a Colevrak kit, so I would be down for it!

A discord channel would indeed be great man, we need to unite, try to think together and raise our voice somehow!

[psxndc]

I'm in for almost anything because SA is my preferred profile at the moment (though none on the IC form really do it for me other than Honeywell). Having a Colemak kit for any of them might get me to buy a set I otherwise wouldn't have considered.

There are some sets out there I really wanted to join or get afterwards (Leviathan), or even just cheapo ones (other Maxkeys sets like blue gray), but just couldn't justify because of the lack of Colemak support. Ditto this on probably half a dozen GMK GBs too - I *loved* 8008s colors, but no Colevrak meant no buy.

I get why GB runners don't include them - we're a really small group and usually the Colevrak kits are the lowest selling ones in just about every group buy - but it just surprises/frustrates me that in a hobby all about customisation, there isn't a bigger community (and thus support for) using non-qwerty layouts.

[equalunique]

I bet the easiest one for SP to produce would be SA-P Industrial, and coincidentally, that's the one missing kit needed for me to buy a full set.

Yuri & Hacker would be great too.

Oh I forgot to mention Modern Selectric, but that's kind of a long shot & it hasn't run in a long long time.

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[psxndc]

I'll also add, I know it's not SA, but there seemed to be a lot of interest during the KAT Milkshake GB for a Colevrak kit for the Werdios kits. They sold 649 Weirdos kits. Alphas were 945 and there were 44 Colevraks for that, so a weirdos Colevrak might hit ~30 or so?

[jiezhou]

I bet the easiest one for SP to produce would be SA-P Industrial, and coincidentally, that's the one missing kit needed for me to buy a full set.

Yuri & Hacker would be great too.

Oh I forgot to mention Modern Selectric, but that's kind of a long shot & it hasn't run in a long long time.

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It seems impossible to run it for some set that is rare and not available for now. So I didn't even list Modern Selectric in the form. And it seems unnecessary for some set that usually has the colevrak support. So I didn't list Godspeed R2.

Yuri is a tough one. Its designer decided to drop the support for Colevrak from the beginning because he thought the theme would not be popular(as Laser) even though it's a GB on Drop.com. Yet later he added many alphas and mods maybe he thought it would be very popular(more alphas than Laser). To that, Some Colevrak user gets angry, refuses to buy Yuri. But no hard feelings, I simply take that as business. As long as there are enough interest like 25 or so before the Yuri GB ends(so that every enlisted person is able to grap one set of alphas, mod, etc. in time), we could engage an extra Colevrak+ run. It's just the price/sale of Yuri doesn't turn out to be good/popular now.

Hacker is under development. Not sure whether there will be a public GB but let me see what I could do.

I'll also add, I know it's not SA, but there seemed to be a lot of interest during the KAT Milkshake GB for a Colevrak kit for the Werdios kits. They sold 649 Weirdos kits. Alphas were 945 and there were 44 Colevraks for that, so a weirdos Colevrak might hit ~30 or so?

I'm not familiar with the KAT GBs. But it seems decent to have the Latin Colevrak already. If its designer decided to include latin colevrak before, probably he will add weirdos colevrak if there is enough interest. You should talk to him about it to get direct support.

[harlekein]

I'll also add, I know it's not SA, but there seemed to be a lot of interest during the KAT Milkshake GB for a Colevrak kit for the Werdios kits. They sold 649 Weirdos kits. Alphas were 945 and there were 44 Colevraks for that, so a weirdos Colevrak might hit ~30 or so?

That doesn't work. I would have bought Weirdo + Colevrak, but it wasn't available. I bought Katakana instead.

I am wondering how much potential Colevrak buyers went with Katakana instead.

[psxndc]

I bought Alpha+Colevrak (to show support) and Katakana (because I'm a weeb). I bought Weirdos too just because I was thinking of asking biip if I could run a Colevrak of the Weirdos, but work has been crazy and I just don't have the time. If Colevrak had been an option for weirdos, I wouldn't have bought alphas.

[jiezhou]

That doesn't work. I would have bought Weirdo + Colevrak, but it wasn't available. I bought Katakana instead.

I am wondering how much potential Colevrak buyers went with Katakana instead.

I bought Alpha+Colevrak (to show support) and Katakana (because I'm a weeb). I bought Weirdos too just because I was thinking of asking biip if I could run a Colevrak of the Weirdos, but work has been crazy and I just don't have the time. If Colevrak had been an option for weirdos, I wouldn't have bought alphas.

These look cool, but I don't recognize these legends so both of them actually work like blank keycaps to me.





Speaking for myself, I suspect whether there is any difference between weirdos/katakana or colevraked weirdos/katakana in real usage - they are all blank keys to me. But you should try to ask biip for more option if it does make sense to you.

It has been a while since the GMK Laser GB introduced the Janpanese only alphas as the kit "Kobe". Later many other exotic legends only alphas came up. In the time of GMK Laser GB, I thought Kobe would be cool to be used as a Dvorak layout and I ordered one. But after I received and installed it on my keyboard, it bothered me somewhat because I was not able to recognize those exotic legends, even though I did blind-typing most of the time. Sometimes it's troublesome to figure out which is the right key to press especially for the number row, at least not so easy when I had not sit tight and put both of my hands on the keyboard to do blind-typing. Later I realized they are just blank keys to me. The exotic legends look cool but they are not practical as normal number/latin. And I should always prefer a normal latin alphas to any exotic legends only alphas.

So, I don't think the cyrillics kit in Yuri GB rather than a true colevrak kit is a good solution for colevrak users. If we have the chance to do the Colevrak+ run and if only one colevrak kit is possible, I think we should do it for the normal latin alphas as the first priority out of other alphas.

[psxndc]

So, I don't think the cyrillics kit in Yuri GB rather than a true colevrak kit is a good solution for colevrak users. If we have the chance to do the Colevrak+ run and if only one colevrak kit is possible, I think we should do it for the normal latin alphas as the first priority out of other alphas.

Oh I don't think anyone would dispute that a Colevrak kit for normal Latin would be ideal. I was suggesting milkshake just because A) it just ran B) had high numbers and C) multiple people during the IC for it asked for Colevrak for weirdos.

I'm personally hoping this IC goes well and indicates a Colevrak-only GB for a past GB is viable so that, down the line, a Colevrak kit for something a little more off the wall (like Milkshake Weirdos) is possible.

[jiezhou]

I try to start a discord channel for casual chatting. Please join the channel: https://discord.gg/XeAqGVf
Or leave messages to my discord: jiezhou#6777

[psxndc]

Folks, HUGE update on this front.

You may or may not know, but SP is retiring the uniform R3 profile Ice Caps in favor of a fully sculpted SA set called Snow Caps. This means we're losing an existing fully Colevrak compatible keycap set, and one I personally love to boot. Booooooo. BUT, I reached out to SP and after a couple back and forths and sending them dvorcol's awesome Colemak+ picture, TLDR they are going to be introducing Colevrak compatibility kits for all their SA sets!!! They didn't say if they are going to do vanilla Colevrak or full Colvevrak+, but hey, it's a step forward. AND they said if we got the original GB runner's permission, it shouldn't be too hard to run Colevrak mini-GBs for other sets.

[equalunique]

Folks, HUGE update on this front.

You may or may not know, but SP is retiring the uniform R3 profile Ice Caps in favor of a fully sculpted SA set called Snow Caps. This means we're losing an existing fully Colevrak compatible keycap set, and one I personally love to boot. Booooooo. BUT, I reached out to SP and after a couple back and forths and sending them dvorcol's awesome Colemak+ picture, TLDR they are going to be introducing Colevrak compatibility kits for all their SA sets!!! They didn't say if they are going to do vanilla Colevrak or full Colvevrak+, but hey, it's a step forward. AND they said if we got the original GB runner's permission, it shouldn't be too hard to run Colevrak mini-GBs for other sets.

I for one am super excited and happy SP was willing to do this!

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[jiezhou]

Good news. Also a surprise if SP would treat niche layout users so seriously. Do you get more specified date, or details of plan(like when/what will come next) from SP? I Hope it's not a general long-terms plan taking years, like just saying eventally they will provide colevrak kits for all their SA sets but no short-term plan.

About the poll, currently we have about a dozen votes of the google form. Still a long road to go for a practical run. If you happen to know some colevrak user, bring him/her aboard to fill the form. Cheers.

[psxndc]

The person I emailed with said "be on the lookout for it next week," but that was specifically for Snow Cap. Then when I asked if the tooling could be used for other sets like SA-P Industrial, she said "[w]e are going to be incorporating more colevrak kits into all of our sculptured sets (that we sell on our site)" which sounds like a more long-term project.

[jiezhou]

The person I emailed with said "be on the lookout for it next week," but that was specifically for Snow Cap. Then when I asked if the tooling could be used for other sets like SA-P Industrial, she said "[w]e are going to be incorporating more colevrak kits into all of our sculptured sets (that we sell on our site)" which sounds like a more long-term project.

I guess that means you will be able to get colevrak kit for SA-P Snow Cap soon, but other SA-P/SA sets later. There are not many SA keysets on PMK, and some of them like SA 1976 has classic colevark kit already, so I guess it would not be that long-term once they decide to do it.

[psxndc]

SP came through! It's listed as out of stock, but the pics are up. They split it into two kits, colevrak and colevrak pro:




I use ColemakDH so I'd have to get both (for the B). Super excited they did this!

[equalunique]

SP came through! It's listed as out of stock, but the pics are up. They split it into two kits, colevrak and colevrak pro:

Show Image

Show Image

I use ColemakDH so I'd have to get both (for the B). Super excited they did this!

That's really exciting!

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[psxndc]

They're no longer "out of stock," so that must have been temporary.

https://pimpmykeyboard.com/sa-p-snow-cap-keyset-original/

They are the Colevrak and Colevrak Pro options.

[Zilleon]

Awesome! I would not buy the set at all, but just did it to show the support for those kits!

[jiezhou]

SP came through! It's listed as out of stock, but the pics are up. They split it into two kits, colevrak and colevrak pro:

Show Image

Show Image

I use ColemakDH so I'd have to get both (for the B). Super excited they did this!

Very nice.

Is it a mistake "]}" in R3 of Colevrak Pro?

[psxndc]

Very nice.

Is it a mistake "]}" in R3 of Colevrak Pro?

No mistake. That's there to support Wide layout. The others: =, [, and / are all in their QWERTY rows, just shifted over.




https://colemakmods.github.io/ergonomic-mods/wide.html

There is a mistake though - D and H in R4 shouldn't be in the base set (which is intended to support just vanilla Colemak and Dvorak), they should be the Colevrak Pro, which supports Colemak DH, DHm, and others. It was my mistake and I've already reached out to them about it.

[equalunique]

Fellow Colevrak friends:

Ne Colevrak?

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I don't know, it's a kit that will allways struggle to reach MOQ. How the IC does the following days will determine if I should open the question about that kit.

If I were to make it, the Typist kit would provide layout coverage for Colemak, Colemak DH, Colemak DHM, Dvorak, Workman, Norman, and Carpalx QGMLWY.

Anyone want to see Typist in Nautilus 2? Machining the GMK tooling for some of these keys might be easier to achieve with a high-profile set like Nautilus 2. Jump to the thread & voice your support!

Link: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=104475.0

[beekey]

Hacker is under development. Not sure whether there will be a public GB but let me see what I could do.

Oh please make it public. Would love to get this set.

[bliss]

Fellows,

if you like uniform profiles, have a look at KAM Wraith (link: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=97181.0). The group buy is live atm!

The uniform profile removes a lot of headache concerning Colevrak, with the homing keys (HUNT) provided in an extra kit ('nav-kit'). As a bonus, as far as I understand it, with KAM the MOQ system (explained in the thread) allows for small / exotic child kits with no worries, because there is just an overall keycap unit figure for the whole order to be met.

Personally, I'll give it a go! Cheers!

[dvorcol]

Very nice.

Is it a mistake "]}" in R3 of Colevrak Pro?

No mistake. That's there to support Wide layout. The others: =, [, and / are all in their QWERTY rows, just shifted over.

Show Image

https://colemakmods.github.io/ergonomic-mods/wide.html

There is a mistake though - D and H in R4 shouldn't be in the base set (which is intended to support just vanilla Colemak and Dvorak), they should be the Colevrak Pro, which supports Colemak DH, DHm, and others. It was my mistake and I've already reached out to them about it.

Oh no, SP's mistake might be my fault!  This exact mistake was in the Colevrak vs Colevrak+ picture I posted in the GMK WoB Colevrak IC.  I just deleted that picture from IMGUR since you cannot edit anything in a closed thread.  I've been trying to maintain a similar post in the MT3 SNES IC thread - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=101187.msg2786467#msg2786467
Long term I need to find a more appropriate location to put this.

Very nice.

Is it a mistake "]}" in R3 of Colevrak Pro?

No mistake. That's there to support Wide layout. The others: =, [, and / are all in their QWERTY rows, just shifted over.

Show Image

https://colemakmods.github.io/ergonomic-mods/wide.html

The shift to wide mod:

[jiezhou]

There is a mistake though - D and H in R4 shouldn't be in the base set (which is intended to support just vanilla Colemak and Dvorak), they should be the Colevrak Pro, which supports Colemak DH, DHm, and others.

It seems SP already fixed this.

Hacker is under development. Not sure whether there will be a public GB but let me see what I could do.

Oh please make it public. Would love to get this set.

Well, I'm not sure about that. It seems light-weight to me to try a small run without making it public, which would cost a lot of time and work to dig into all these ic/vendor/scheduling, etc. stuff.

Please PM me if you are interested to join for SA Hacker.

[psxndc]

There is a mistake though - D and H in R4 shouldn't be in the base set (which is intended to support just vanilla Colemak and Dvorak), they should be the Colevrak Pro, which supports Colemak DH, DHm, and others.

It seems SP already fixed this.

Not to pat myself on the back, but yeah, because I let them know. And to their credit, they fixed it super quick before the sets even went live.

But any way, fellow Colevrakians/Colemak bois, since we've gathered here, I'd like to pose a question to you all: what are your thoughts on requesting a 1u R3 backspace be added to the standard Colevrak+ kit? I understand the kit is already sizable, and we're a small, niche group, but as someone that uses ortho boards almost exclusively, the caps-lock sized backspace does nothing for me and I'm often left struggling to fill that slot with something else.

I realize colevrak ortho may be a niche within a niche, but I was curious if this is something that would benefit others too, or shall I just keep filling the void with novelties and whatever random R3 key I can?

[equalunique]

There is a mistake though - D and H in R4 shouldn't be in the base set (which is intended to support just vanilla Colemak and Dvorak), they should be the Colevrak Pro, which supports Colemak DH, DHm, and others.

It seems SP already fixed this.

Not to pat myself on the back, but yeah, because I let them know. And to their credit, they fixed it super quick before the sets even went live.

But any way, fellow Colevrakians/Colemak bois, since we've gathered here, I'd like to pose a question to you all: what are your thoughts on requesting a 1u R3 backspace be added to the standard Colevrak+ kit? I understand the kit is already sizable, and we're a small, niche group, but as someone that uses ortho boards almost exclusively, the caps-lock sized backspace does nothing for me and I'm often left struggling to fill that slot with something else.

I realize colevrak ortho may be a niche within a niche, but I was curious if this is something that would benefit others too, or shall I just keep filling the void with novelties and whatever random R3 key I can?

I don't have a problem with that key, although I personally wouldn't use it either. I do welcome 1u R3 keys where I can use it in place of the single/double quote key as often found on GMK kits.

Just curious, have you thought of a Colevrak+ kit for DSS? I feel like DSS Dolch should have one.

[jiezhou]

There is a mistake though - D and H in R4 shouldn't be in the base set (which is intended to support just vanilla Colemak and Dvorak), they should be the Colevrak Pro, which supports Colemak DH, DHm, and others.

It seems SP already fixed this.

Not to pat myself on the back, but yeah, because I let them know. And to their credit, they fixed it super quick before the sets even went live.

But any way, fellow Colevrakians/Colemak bois, since we've gathered here, I'd like to pose a question to you all: what are your thoughts on requesting a 1u R3 backspace be added to the standard Colevrak+ kit? I understand the kit is already sizable, and we're a small, niche group, but as someone that uses ortho boards almost exclusively, the caps-lock sized backspace does nothing for me and I'm often left struggling to fill that slot with something else.

I realize colevrak ortho may be a niche within a niche, but I was curious if this is something that would benefit others too, or shall I just keep filling the void with novelties and whatever random R3 key I can?

I'm not sure. It seems quite juicy to add more keys, to include the ortho. For users, more keys are usually welcomed. But from the perspective of designers, they have to consider keeping the price down. Colevrak + Ortho seems impossible because Colevrak is hard already and Colevrak+ is harder. A lot of designers/GBs desert Colevrak(+) these days. And there are not many people who showed up to support this thread and filled the form.