Add Cantor

[azzamsa]

Please complete this checklist and submit your issue - I will do my best to add your keyboard as soon as I can:

• [X] Keyboard name: Cantor
• [] Url to vector graphic (e.g. svg, pdf, etc.) of switch plate:
• [X] Min and max number of keys: 42
• [X] Url to keyboard project source (if available): https://github.com/diepala/cantor
• [X] Url to store to buy keyboard (if available): https://shop.beekeeb.com/

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Hi, I have opened the issue to add Cantor to SplitKbCompare https://github.com/diepala/cantor/issues/3, it has been two months now. So, I think I need to take the matter into my own hand. I would like to compare it to Torn.

I have read the instruction for adding a new keyboard, But I still don't get It. I can open the images/overlays.ai using Inkscape (I don't have Adobe Illustrator), but I don't have any idea what to do next. Also, I don't have any clue how to get the SVG. Is it via KiCad?

Thanks for splitKbCompare.

[jhelvy]

Just seeing this for the first time now (the original issue was on the diepala/cantor repo, so I never saw it). I hand-place the svg files in Illustrator, so it's a time-consuming process. Often times I need to adjust the labels of other boards so that they don't overlap, and I usually try to do a batch of boards at once. Once they're all aligned, I re-export all the layers as individual png files (Illustrator makes this easy).

I haven't had any time to work on this over the past few months, but if I get some time in the next month or so I can try to add it myself.

[azzamsa]

(the original issue was on the diepala/cantor repo, so I never saw it).

Yeah, I thought the addition of new keyboard can be done "easily" by the keyboard author. Turns out, it is not.

I haven't had any time to work on this over the past few months, but if I get some time in the next month or so I can try to add it myself.

Thanks a lot.

[jhelvy]

I merged the PR for this, but the switch plate file image was not properly scaled in the overlays.ai file, so it doesn't line up correctly. I have everything set such that the "J" key (in QWERTY) is the alignment point for every board. The cantor needs to be scaled up slightly and re-aligned. @l4u since you edited the overlays.ai file do you think you could update it?

[l4u]

@jhelvy Yeah I can realign it according to the J key. For the PNG and PDF export, do you have a recommended way to do it?

[jhelvy]

It's still off. Sorry I can't really fix this right now. The alignment process is tedious. I usually first re-scale the svg to match another board like the corne. Then once the scaling it right I copy the crosshairs from the corne and paste it onto the new board on the "J" key, then select the svg, crosshair, and label and make it all one layer. Then I align everything on the cross hair.

[l4u]

@jhelvy I've aligned it in the ai file. But I haven't regenerated the png files. What dpi should I export it?

[jhelvy]

Really sorry, but it's still not quite aligned right :(. The issue is scaling - the switch plate for the Cantor must be scaled up a little more. Not every board has the same scaling when imported into Illustrator. You have to make the whole image slightly larger. It takes iteration as you have to scale, align, scale, align to get it right.

This shows you just how much manual work it takes to add more boards to the project. I wish I had an easier process but I just don't know any other way to do it. I can maybe try and add all the remaining boards one day later in July, but after that batch I won't be able to add anymore. Just don't have the time.

[l4u]

@jhelvy is it the scaling at the ai file or the generated png file? From the overlays.ai, I can see 3w6 is having a 14mm switch hole, which is the same as the cantor image.

[jhelvy]

Actually I think you're right. I was comparing it to the corne, but it has slightly different spacing, so it just looked like it was off. When I compare it to the 3w6 is aligns:

I just uploaded it to shinyapps.io so these updates should now be live.

[l4u]

@jhelvy probably the Corne plate includes laser kerf.

[jhelvy]

Yeah I don't know all the details of these things. Each plate file is unique and some include different things, so it's not a perfect comparison half the time. But it does the job well enough.