An implementation of the Diaspora cluster-generation system (as specified by VSCA Publishing). You may click on the words of the application title for more information.
So, in general, blue/gold is good; red/grey is bad.
There's no green because I'm trying to make it color-blind-friendly (at least, the most common form).
On the "Params" tab, enter the number of star systems in your cluster and hit the "Go!" button.
You can rearrange the nodes of the generated cluster map by dragging them (also, zoom and pan the map view by dragging its whitespace and using the mouse scroll wheel), but, at this time, those changes are ephemeral as all get-out, so don't put too much effort into it except as a busy-box kind of thing while you're on a conference call.
To access clusters in the cloud (sharing will be implemented later), you'll need to log in on the "Session" tab. Currently, only Google and "plain" logins are implemented. I might implement a Facebook login or a Twitter login later, if there's demand.
The rest of this is probably more than you want to know about an irritating login glitch.
Logging in works but is a bit glitchy at the moment, because the UI might not accurately update to reflect the fact that you're logged in. Your current user id should be displayed on the "Session" tab, but I guess I'm Doing It Wrong, because another UI update cycle (such as that triggered by generating a new cluster) sometimes is required for the Session tab UI to properly update.
In case you think you're logged in but the UI doesn't show it, to verify that you're logged in, if you have previously saved clusters, you should see them on the "Params" tab. (Alternatively, you can generate a new cluster and look again at the "Session" tab, where you should see your user id. If you already generated a spectacularly awesome cluster and you want to preserve it (a sketchy proposition, given that this is alpha software), see XML section below.)
If you hit "Login", and you get a prompt to enter your password (or pick a user id and then enter a password), you're almost certainly in, even though the UI might not update properly.
For the Google login, if you're logged in to Google on another web page, the login process here should automatically pick that up (when you hit the "Login" button).
Once you're logged in, you stay logged in, even between sessions, until you hit the "Logout" button.
If you're logged in, on the "Session" tab, enter a name for the cluster and hit "Save"
Note that there is also the possibility of extracting the cluster as XML, possibly for use in another cluster-generation system. See the "XML" tab.
When you have a great cluster and you're not sure you're logged in and you don't want to lose your cluster, save the XML. Then, when you get logged in, you can paste your saved XML back into the XML box and blithely continue.
On the "Params" tab, hit the orange "Load" button on the left side of the row of a cluster you want to edit.
On the "Params" tab, hit the red "Delete" button on the right side of the row of a cluster you want to delete.
On the "Cluster" tab, you can hit the "Edit" button at the right end of the row corresponding to a star system. The button will change to a "Done" button, which will end edit mode. However, you will still need to save the cluster to preserve your edits beyond your session.
Once the row is in Edit mode, you can change the star system's name or its aspects, or enter free-form notes about the system.
Finally, if you don't like the layout generated, you can drag the cluster nodes around to create a better layout. The canvas can be panned by clicking and dragging on white space, and it can be zoomed with the mouse scroll wheel. At this time, any changes you make will not be saved (even if you switch to another tab), so don't spend too much effort on rearranging the cluster. (Saving geometry changes will come in the future.)
I intend to keep a list of credits here (assuming I get contributions, which, ya know, who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). I'm happy to field suggestions, observations, complaints, pull requests, all that.
Graphical cluster notations were inspired by posts on the Google+ Diaspora community (specifically, Jeff Miller's notations). Search for "#clustermania" in the community.
Available at: GitHub: JohnL4/Diaspora-ng
If you look at it, you might (justifiably) come to the conclusion that it's a steaming, greasy pile of awfulness, but so be it. This ain't my day job. I was a Java web developer way back in the pre-Web-2.0 days and I'm like Rip van Winkle, having woken up and now attempting to come to grips with the new world.
This is what's called a "JAM" app in some corners of the internets: Javascript, APIs, Markup; there is no back-end (for now). See https://jamstack.org/ and https://www.netlify.com/ for more info.