New parliament diagram tool: alpha testers required.

[Slashme]

Are you tired of only being able to generate arch-shaped diagrams for your factbook? Is your nation a constitutional monarchy, with a loyal government, a loyal opposition, and a motley association of vaccilationists? If so, you might like to alpha-test my new experimental, Wikipedia-grade Westiminster-style diagram generator.

It divides the diagram up into a left wing, a right wing, a cross-bench section and a Speaker / Leader section. You add the parties as usual, but now you also have to select where in the layout they appear.

In response to a discussion on Wikipedia, I have added two controls to modify the appearance of the spots:

• Corner radius: how rounded are the squares that represent an individual representative?
• Spacing: How much white space is there between the spots?

Once we have a consensus at Wikipedia on which settings look nice, I'll hard-code these two settings into the final script, so that we have a consistent look. Until then, feel free to customise your diagram as you see fit.

You'll notice that I made the size of the spots in the "speaker" section independent of the scale of the rest of the diagram. If I didn't do this, it would lead to significant weirdnesses.

Please make some diagrams with varying numbers of parties and delegates, and let me know what you think of the layout and other style choices. As usual, the best place to make bug reports is Github. Feel free to contact me at Wikipedia as well.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

Our parliament has full ring seating instead of a semi circle arc. Speakers are in the centre.

[Slashme]

Our parliament has full ring seating instead of a semi circle arc. Speakers are in the centre.

While I won't be coding that specifically, you can achieve the effect reasonably well by creating two semicircular diagrams, merging them in Inkscape, and adding a speaker in the middle. For example, suppose your parliament is made up of the following groups:

• The Singers (20)
• The Spinners (30)
• The Weavers (25)
• The Dancers (40)

This is a total of 115 seats, so divide it into two halves, one 57 and one 58.
The first half has all of The Singers and The Spinners, making 50 seats, plus 7 seats from the Weavers. The second half has the other 18 Weavers, plus all of the Dancers, making 58. Fit those two diagrams together, put the speaker in the middle by hand (Inkscape has a nifty align function for that) and you get this Modern Globe Theatre of political debate:

[Nersland]

I had no idea you were on NS, but I guess it would make sense that you would have heard of us.

I was wondering how a Westminster diagram might be arranged. I appreciate your work on this and your other generator(s). Thank you very much.

[Slashme]

I had no idea you were on NS, but I guess it would make sense that you would have heard of us.

I discovered NationStates during a web search for "parliament diagram" - I had no idea it even existed until I found out that my diagram generator was used here!

So: are you also on Wikipedia?

[Nersland]

So: are you also on Wikipedia?

I lurk rather frequently (and Wiktionary as well), but I lack an account.

[Geadland]

The diagram generators are excellent tools. I made a thread to instruct other users on how to make them, under my old account (ArghNeedAName). Thanks for making the interface more user-friendly.

Here's what I got for my parliament:


Compared to the original arch diagram:

(On the arch, the central orange party seems to have an inconsistent colour. This is because of me recolouring it, not the fault of the program.)

[Assamese Republic]

your name seems so familiar...

[Assamese Republic]

It works really well, but I just dislike having a parliament like that. If I chose to use it, I think I'd like it.

[Slashme]

I'm glad you are getting some use out of this beta version! Note, it will probably change quite a bit over the weekend - see my Wikipedia talk page for more details, and again, please feel free to make suggestions.

[Assamese Republic]

YES. That's it! You're the guy that made the original round one

[Butballs]

Thanks.

[Slashme]

YES. That's it! You're the guy that made the original round one

Yes, that's me! Sorry, I thought you meant that you knew me from some other context, but I had no idea what that could have been.

[Syndikat]

I've been looking for a Westminster style parliament tool for quite a while. Glad to have finally found one.

House of Labourers (Arch)


House of Labourers (Westminster Style)

National Syndicate (Arch)


National Syndicate (Westminster Style)

My nation isn't a constitutional monarchy, it's a semi-presidential syndicalist (form of socialism) republic, but for some reason I'm a fan of the Westminster setup for the legislative houses.

[Slashme]

Hi all,

As I promised, there have now been some updates to the Westminster diagram creator, mostly prompted by comments at my Wikipedia talk page. Again, that or a github issue report is the best way to get my attention.

• The "speaker" spot is now the same size as the rest, and if there are more, they run down the middle of the diagram.
• The cross-bench has been moved to the back of the diagram
• If the speaker spot or cross-bench are not present, no space is reserved for them
• If you don't like the automatic layout, you can now specify how many rows should be used for the left and right wings, and how many columns for the cross-bench.

Here's an example of the improved output:

If this looks too bulky for you, it's now easy to make it longer and narrower by setting the "wing rows" input to whatever you prefer.

[Slashme]

I've done some bug-fixes and added some features:

• You can now decide whether both wings of your diagram should use the full width of the diagram, or whether they must be the same depth.
• You can also decide whether you want to start each new party in a new column, or whether you want to allow parties to share a column.

For example, this is a diagram made with the "full width" option, and keeping parties from sharing a column:

[Appalatchia]

Full width option is definitely better looking, in my opinion

[Gristol-Serkonos]

Wooo!

This certainly cuts the work load drawing in each seat in Inkscape.

Thanks!

[Iwanoji]

I'll definetly be taging this for future use. I really like it and thanks for being this to my attention

[Amuaplye]

Can we have a option which we can choose if we want the crossbench in the middle or in the back?

[Minoa]

Due to the unique nature of the Minoa parliament, I had to commission a bespoke parliament diagram via Illustrator: a blank unpopulated version is shown below:



The current specifications for the Minoa parliament are as follows:

• 600 seats for the Vouli (Βουλή)
• 300 seats for the Gerousa (Γερουσία)
• 54 seats for the Panminoikos (Πανμινωικός)

[Slashme]

Can we have a option which we can choose if we want the crossbench in the middle or in the back?

Because the tool is primarily aimed at Wikipedia use, where we want to encourage a consistent look, I haven't kept that option. It's still available in the old versions of the code on GitHub, but I don't plan on reimplementing it, sorry!

[Slashme]

Due to the unique nature of the Minoa parliament, I had to commission a bespoke parliament diagram via Illustrator: a blank unpopulated version is shown below:

That looks really nice! Good work!

[Genovia-Karlsruhe]

Due to the unique nature of the Minoa parliament, I had to commission a bespoke parliament diagram via Illustrator: a blank unpopulated version is shown below:

(Image) (Image)

The current specifications for the Minoa parliament are as follows:

• 600 seats for the Vouli (Βουλή)
• 300 seats for the Gerousa (Γερουσία)
• 54 seats for the Panminoikos (Πανμινωικός)

I like this diagram. Where did you make it?

[Blorbs]

Tag. On my phone ATM so it won't work most likely but when I get back to my PC I'll try it out. Looks awesome!