I’m in the UK so I would like to have a keyboard that has the at-symbol and inverted-commas in the correct places for my fingers. The Keychron Qn Pros all come with keycaps that have the ats and inverted-commas the “wrong way round” for me so I was wondering if I buy a Q2 Pro and a set of keycaps, will I be able to put on the keycaps that I want and remap the two keys using Via so that they send the correct characters?
Yes you should be fine if you do that. Just make sure your switches are compatible with your keycaps (very unlikely the aren’t compatible) and you’ll be golden.
Followup question: if I am going down the custom keyboard rabbit hole should I just learn the ANSI layout and get used to the locations of the ", @, ~, \ etc characters?
Though ISO layout is relatively less adopted, some of the more popular keycap sets and custom PCBs do have ISO variants or add-ons. So you should be good until you look at exotic/tiny/niche offerings.
As an activity, you could take a look at the past group buys and offerings, and note down how many times did a designer not support ISO layout in an offering you liked.
The layout is defined by what you set on your computer, it doesn’t have to match what’s on the keycaps. The only thing to look out for is ANSI vs ISO, UK keyboards have an extra key instead of a longer shift key so you’ll want an ISO variant of the keyboard.
If you want some keycaps with UK legends, make sure they include a 1.75u right shift if your keyboard has that. Other than that, the keychrons have standard layouts.
QMK and VIA can remap any key on any layer. Assuming the keycap set you go with has the @ and ’ keys on the right rows to match the keycap profile, it will work out fine.
Also, assuming you mean this board, one thing to note is that the stock keycaps the UK prebuilt version ships with includes the swapped @ and ’ keys in the box with the intention that you could change those keycaps and remap with QMK or VIA like you describe. Unless you don’t like the stock keycaps, this could be more desirable.
Yes I am swithering between getting one of the UK ISO ones, which would have everything in the “right” place, or one of the ANSI ones which will be more flexible for fun keycap upgrades and such.
Oh, so was the original post you wanting to try swapping the @ and ’ keys on ANSI keycaps to mimic UK ISO? If so, this probably won’t work. Keycaps typically (with exceptions) have different profiles for different rows, and besides, it would be nearly impossible to find an ANSI set with the 2 and " grouped on one keycap along with ’ and @ on another like ISO.
For the ISO vs ANSI discussion, I say go with ISO unless there is an ANSI keycap set that you must have that happens to lack an ISO version. Dealing with a keyboard format I’m not used to using seems like a massive headache to me.
It would be a massive headache but there seems to be a dearth of UK ISO keycap options. I think my best option would be to go ANSI and keep the keycap symbols as they are, but map the output I want with Via if it becomes a pain.
You could certainly do that if you are ok with the legends being off when they are remapped (non-issue if you touch type). I have heard many people from the UK and other countries that use ISO end up doing this specifically for keycap selection. I believe the selection has gotten better over time, but it still doesn’t compare to ANSI keycap selection.
I’ve been surprised at how little is available for UK ISO. ANSI it is then!
